Hetland
Contributor
This year, recreational fishers were given a whopping seven weekends to fill their two fish per person daily quota of American Red Snapper. I'll save my monologue on the ridiculousness of these limits for another post.
My first trip out resulted in a hook & line charter ignoring our boat's dive flag, and motoring over the top of divers, where they dropped their lines right on top of myself and Recharge. XRay had to literally call the Coast Guard on these guys to get them to back off. The captain of the other boat said we were on public numbers, and could !@#$ off if we didn't want him spinning props over our heads.
Second trip was a weekday trip, and no one messed with us.
Third trip had a hook & line boat rolling over divers and ignoring our dive flag. The captain said that dive flags couldn't be used on a boat that was under power (we were free boating) and he could do whatever in the !@#$% he wanted. After I spewed a few paragraphs of rage-filled expletives (conservatively sprinkled with dive flag regs) they backed off and our divers surfaced. I seriously wanted to climb their boat and choke some dudes.
Last trip was in driving rain and 4ft seas. For some reason, we had the Gulf to ourselves
On average, I think bigger fish were shot this year compared to last (we had a split season last year because of the oil spill). Conditions ranged from 4ft of viz to 60+ depending on the day and distance from shore. Hopefully we'll have a longer season next year, or a bigger creel limit. I think part of the reason grouper are so sparse is because the snapper are eating up all of the resources that would normally be shared by other fish...
Anyway, mostly a boring report, but here are a few pics to spice things up:
Oh, and some shovelnose lobster found their way to my grill
My first trip out resulted in a hook & line charter ignoring our boat's dive flag, and motoring over the top of divers, where they dropped their lines right on top of myself and Recharge. XRay had to literally call the Coast Guard on these guys to get them to back off. The captain of the other boat said we were on public numbers, and could !@#$ off if we didn't want him spinning props over our heads.
Second trip was a weekday trip, and no one messed with us.
Third trip had a hook & line boat rolling over divers and ignoring our dive flag. The captain said that dive flags couldn't be used on a boat that was under power (we were free boating) and he could do whatever in the !@#$% he wanted. After I spewed a few paragraphs of rage-filled expletives (conservatively sprinkled with dive flag regs) they backed off and our divers surfaced. I seriously wanted to climb their boat and choke some dudes.
Last trip was in driving rain and 4ft seas. For some reason, we had the Gulf to ourselves
On average, I think bigger fish were shot this year compared to last (we had a split season last year because of the oil spill). Conditions ranged from 4ft of viz to 60+ depending on the day and distance from shore. Hopefully we'll have a longer season next year, or a bigger creel limit. I think part of the reason grouper are so sparse is because the snapper are eating up all of the resources that would normally be shared by other fish...
Anyway, mostly a boring report, but here are a few pics to spice things up:
Oh, and some shovelnose lobster found their way to my grill