Day 4 - Bottom Fishing for the men,  Dolphins for the Browns.  Planned on a men's trip for the a.m., and would swing back to the marina and pick up the kids for a dolphin trip.

We headed straight to the whistle buoy for bait, but didn't have much luck.  The wind & sea's made holding tight on the buoy a problem, and the bait didn't cooperate.  We managed a few, but finally gave up and headed a mile away to a bottom spot.  At the bottom spot, we dropped the sabiki's again but our luck didn't change significantly.  Having some frozen bait on board, we gave up on livies and decided to save what little time was left and head offshore 17 miles.  Seas were 1-3', but we rode the waves out at 30 mph.

We found our spot we had marked earlier in the week, but the sea's had build to 3-4's and the wind was steady.  We did a couple drifts and had fish on relative soon, so we decided to anchor.  On the 2nd try, we found some good bottom under us and stayed put until our bait & the bite diminished. 

We managed a few keeper grouper and snapper, but no monsters.  It was a great day as we introduced Aaron, dad, & Mark to their 1st red grouper & snapper.  They also managed to survive without losing their lunch, while others strived to break their previous chumming records!!!!

We had a pod of porpoise circling the boat constantly waiting for us to release our undersize fish & make a quick meal of them.  A large turtle visited us to take a peak at the beautiful $EA $ICKNE$$, but we were really hoping for some cruising cobia which never showed up.

We tried to troll in w/high speed wahoo lures, but the seas were too rough & we couldn't keep them in the H20.  Will definitely have to acquire some trolling weights for our next trip.  Our one hour trip out turned into 2+ hours ride in -  between the head on confused 3-4's and avoiding the large electrical storms, we didn't make good time.  Not that you could tell by pondduck's snoring though;  I think he found the bean bag to his liking!

The weather broke by the time we got back to the channel entrance, so we ran on in to pick up the Brown's for a dolphin adventure.  As you can see, the  dolphins liked Aaron & the Brown's!