Guests
SB Mayor Scott, FSDA president Screen Name, Zack fan club president Bgbill, Topshotta, and Spearooo.

Sea Conditions
The seas were slighty "textured" Friday night laying down to 3'-5' as we anchored for the night, and progressively calmed to nothing on Saturday. It picked back up late into the night to 2'-4', and again laid down to nothing by Sunday afternoon. Water temps were 67*, vis varied from 20'-60', and there was a mild current on some of the shallower spots.

Slay Report
After we slammed into the hundredth seven foot wave, I knew my name was mud. Based on the forecast expecting a 3'-5' sea on the way out, we scaled back our MG trip to instead do some deeper local stuff. Now as I heard yet another unidentified guest behind me loudly blow chowder on the deck while I struggled to maintain my position in the captain's chair with the JR2 powered down to 7 knots, I came to the realization that NOAA once again was juuuust slightly off in their forecast. Bastards, after I finish this report, I'm heading down to their regional office where I will ask them to form an orderly single file line so as to more efficiently kick all their asses . The seas did lay down somewhat as we approached our first spot more than six hours later, and after the anchor was set everyone went to sleep without any fishing or Jolly Dog feast.

The morning greeted us with a very doable 2'-4' dropping out rapidly, but that was not the end of our woes. In my daze from the battering the night before, I forgot to attach the buoy ball to the anchor line (someting I've done let's see-one million times!), and while backing down to pull out the slack got the line wrapped in the propeller. Over the side I go, and after 30 minutes of untangling and getting beat up like a circus monkey in a two bit Ukranian carnival show by the hull of the boat, we're ready to actually start diving.

We were able to backdive the first spot which produced some monster mangos and jacks. As with almost every dive site this weekend it was populated with countless red snapper which have only ten days of reprieve before the hammer falls! We continued picking mangos, jacks, and a moderate amount of grouper stopping at the SM-1 Tower in the afternoon. Scott and I strapped on some tanks while the other guys freedove. Spearooo was an absolute beast! He pimped slapped the grovers al pulmon, and picked up his limit for the whole trip with the smallest one being around 5#. After a couple more stops, we anchored in calm seas a little closer in, and ate Friday AND Saturday night's dinner. Scott had the hot hand hook and lining, but only after he commenced with the very vocal JR2 fish fighting style, and put a number of nice gags in the box.

We worked the rock piles on Sunday, and while the spots were not as loaded up as they usually are since the spring bait migration has not made it way there yet, our run and gun style allowed us to pick at them to get the box nearly topped by lunch time. A couple degrees of water temp, and this place is going to explode. Perfect timing for the SBO ! Topshotta, Spearoo, and I finished the trip on a large pile loaded with snouters, and filled up some HOD's that would have made for some difficult editing to make SB friendly if the camera would have been handy.

Despite the rough start, this ended up being a great trip. Hopefully, I was able to redeem myself for the washing machine spin cycle we went through Friday night. Sometimes you have to ask yourself, how bad do you want it? There will be times when Mother Ocean doesn't give it up that easily. Yeah, we're some tough hombres.....or idiots. Oh, one more thing for you guys that stayed on the dock because you were scared of a few little "ripples" in the Gulf, www.victoriasecret.com has a fine selection of panties in many styles and fashionable colors...... .

Slaytistics
Only six divers, Jimmy Z was fighting the flu bug all weekend.
Gag Grouper=42
Red Grouper=3
Mango Snapper=96
Hogfish=55
Amberjack=8
Triggerfish=LOTS!

AJ Suarez