Seeing Red In Grayton Beach

Red Snappers opened up this past weekend for a steady six-week run, after only being open on weekends (state waters) for the first part of May. We have had some spectacular catches but the Snappers are not as thick up in close as usual for this time of year.

I had been having to run to deeper waters to get a limit of good fish and had a few short trips where we didn't have a limit when we came in. I swapped boats out last Thursday with the opening of federal waters and was able to fish past the "fence" on Thursday and Friday mornings with great success. Seems there are plenty of snappers, just a little further out. I have not been able to get out due to weather (tropical storms will do that) the past few days but hopefully all this big surf and high tides will shuffle the deck out there in the Gulf and move some fish up in a little closer for us later this week.

There have been some big Kings around and I have caught more Cobia in May than we did in April this year. We are getting a few Grouper bites each trip but, they are still one the hardest fish to land so most are still out there and it's a big deal when a big one comes in over the rail.

Here are a few pics from the past couple weeks.

Snappers weren't open this day but we had a great bottom trip with Cobia, Red Grouper and Vermillions.

Regulars with a great snapper catch on a weekend day.

We never bottom fished this 1/2 day trip and came in with a great catch.. that big King was 46# and the Cobias were triplets.

That young man on the left is one of my hard core regulars at 9 years old. He was nice this trip and let dad catch the 2 biggest Snapper.

Another regular fishing family with not a just a personal but a family best on that big King.

The fellow with the white beard said he had been trying to land a big King for 51 years.. Success!

A big Red Grouper, huge Triggers and a limit of Red Snapper on this family trip.

Another great family 4 hr. trip

This fellow had help filling the board but he got that big grouper, and was proud of it!

Happy regulars with a fine 3 hr afternoon board.

Always excited to see what a storm stirs up! No telling what will be around when it calms down.