Guests
Codbone, Walt Quinn, his wife Dr. Sarah Quinn, and their buddies Scott and Tim. With the exception of Walt and Codbone, it was everyone's first visit to the MG, and Scott's first experience at slinging steel.

Sea Conditions
Saturday morning started as a normal summer day with sunny skies, flat seas, and stifling hot temperatures. Around noon, the cumulus clouds built quickly, and soon we found ourselves in a ten mile solid t-storm cell. What ensued for the next two hours was near biblical: Winds kicking up to 40 knots, downdrafts suddenly dropping the temperature, torrential rains, and VERY close lightning strikes so frequent that it looked like a strobe light outside the window with zero interval between flash and thunder. By the afternoon it had passed, we continued diving, and that night was so calm we were able to stay stern anchored after we turned in. Jim had told everyone to marvel at the picture perfect pink sunset sky that evening whereupon Scott quipped, "Yeah, that's the same sky that try to kill us earlier" .

Visibility in the area of the MG we were in was 60'-80' the entire weekend, bottom water temps were 74*, and the current was ripping on most sites especially on the surface.

Slay Report
Like clockwork, seven rods bent over double seconds after hitting the bottom barely giving us enough time to even put the reels in gear. A couple minutes later the deck was bouncing with 5#-15# red snappers, and didn't stop for a couple of hours when the boat limit was filled. Not a bad way to start the trip which began at the Hatch on Friday afternoon a few hours earlier. This was a spot that Jimmy Z had hit on the past two hook and line trips he ran with similar results. I dove the spot prior to April 22, and it literally had 1000 plus head of red scaleys on it. If you have a trip in the next month, keep your fingers crossed that these guys will stick around because it is some fast and furious action.

It looks like the summer pattern has settled in the MG with mangos, red grouper, and hogs being the prevalent species. I noticed a distinct absence of baitfish probably because of the lower than normal water temp for the time of year which might explain why the gags were even scarcer than they usually are in the summer although we put a respectable number on the boat. Most of the mangos don't even have roe in them yet so perhaps as the water warms up, we'll get the expected early summer action a month late in July. Pods of big amberjacks roamed many of the ledges, and everyone got a taste of the "rodeo" with the obligatory tales of bent shafts, lost shafts, and line gun entanglemets following the dives.

Saturday night was a classic mango bite for those with the energy left to fish. I got so tired of catching king mackerels up to 30# on flatlines that I just started setting the hook, and handing the rod to Tim who happily battled them circling the boat from bow to stern around fifty times with several fish before he too got tired of the game. Jimmy Z capped off the night with a couple of back to back blacfin tunas in the 30# class so anyone on a July charter can expect sushi rolls along with your Jolly Dogs.

For such a novice crew the box was near topped by the time we made it back to the Hatch Sunday afternoon. An FWC patrol tied up to us at the marina while unloading, and were amazed at the size of the hogfish in the box, even taking pictures with them. Hey boys, whatever you want to do, it's fine with me . After BS'ing with them for a while, they are going to see if they can put an FWC MG dive trip together. I'm sorry officer, that red grouper looks a little short. That would be classic.....

AJ Suarez