One hot hour

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Another awesome day out in the bay near Destin, FL. Really it was one awesome hour, but it made up for the rest of the day. We went out in the later half of the day. It was raining heavily just North of us, but we didn't get a drop where we were. It was a bit windy, however. We were trying out some new spots we hadn't yet hit, but weren't having any luck. On the way back in we decided to swing by our usual spot for a bit before we packed it in.

Redfish just shy of 22-inches.

When we got there it was empty. Nobody else was out there fishing. We pulled in and tied the boat off on one of the docks and started fishing. I threw a live shrimp out and set the pole down and started rigging my other rod. Before I could even get the hook in the water a fish was going crazy on the end of my first line; a feisty little 15 inch Redfish. I threw him back and reloaded the hook with another shrimp and threw it out. I got to my second line and rigged a live shrimp and sent him on his way. At that moment Jimmy hooked into one. I grabbed the net and helped him get the decent sized Redfish into the boat. Then I went to my line and sure enough had a fish on. He felt big. He started pulling line off the reel and had the drag screaming for a moment. Jimmy grabbed the net and brought him in the boat; a beefy 20-inch Black Drum. Then he got a hit on his other line, which nearly took the pole for a swim. He rushed over to it and pulled in another nice Redfish. We were running into a serious problem...we only had one net and there were too many fish! It went on like this for about an hour. Every cast, no matter what the bait, we were getting something.

Bluefish that took the Rattle Trap

As the action began to slow I had noticed a few baitfish jumping out of the water like they were running from something off to my right about 30 feet away. I took the shrimp off my line and put on a 3/4 oz Rattle Trap lure and threw it on the other side of where they were jumping. I reeled it in across where I thought they were and a 15-inch Bluefish hit it hard. After I brought him in the boat the baitfish stopped jumping. He must have been the only one harassing them. They can thank me later when they're big and tasty.

  

Sheepshead chompers

We ended up keeping four Redfish, one Black Drum, one Sheepshead, and one bluefish. Normally I wouldn't keep that many fish, but since we were having a big BBQ over the weekend, we kept what we could. Here his how we cooked them.

We smoked a Sheepshead and two Redfish (I think) in an eletctric smoker. We did a wet smoke were you put a pan of water in the smoker to create steam and used wood chips to create smoke. We cooked them for a few hours along with some wings. The flesh just melted off the bones and had an awesome smokey flavor.


We ended up grilling the other fish as well as some Speckled Trout on a gas grill along with some local shrimp. No matter how you season your fish, cooking them on the grill is awesome. We used lemon pepper and other various seafood seasonings.