What a great trip I got to experience over the last couple of days! I got invited on a multi-day long range fishing trip by the owner and captain of the offshore charter boat I’ve been recently working on. We left midafternoon to smooth seas and high expectations. The plans were to try for some late afternoon and night time snapper fishing close to the grouper grounds that we were going to fish starting at first light the next morning.  After a couple of drops the snapper bite was slow, although we got enough porgies, lane and mangrove snapper for the next night’s dinner. A couple of cutoffs from a suspected shark were enough to have me call it a night. The next morning the captain was up early and had us on some great spots, where the bite was pretty good. While not quite yet awake yet I managed to land my biggest couple of red grouper ever in one of the densest fogs I’ve seen.



That started one of the most amazing days of fishing for me ever, as we worked from spot to spot in the fog.



We caught a good pace of red and gag grouper over the day and then I caught my fish of the trip. We were using fairly heavy tackle and the big fish almost brought me to my knees at the gunnel, several times, as I tried to keep the monster fish off the bottom. A great battle ensued and while I had high hopes the fish was going to be a monster gag or black grouper, what turned out to be my biggest greater amberjack to date made my day.



At the very next stop I had another big battle on my hands. The first time it bit I just couldn’t stop the unknown behemoth, and it broke me off on the bottom. I asked for another try, and what turned out to be a good sized goliath grouper quickly obliged and the fight was on again.



I got it up pretty quick considering the size and the captain did an amazing job of venting the big fish so it could return to its underwater lair.



As we ran home through the late afternoon fog we got another great remote offshore scene, as we exited the fog bank just in time to see an amazing sunset.