Planned to introduce Daniel, Ben, & Jeremy to some AJ's.  I figured we could find them at the 50 mile rigs.  We stopped on the way out to pick up some live bait which we did but they were on the large side.  We figured that would be OK too, as we hoped to find some large grouper too along the way.  We found plenty of snappers, a nice trigger, bee liners, a couple black drum, an AJ, a remora, and even a blue fish while trying to catch bait.  It seemed we were headed to a good day as the fish seemed hungry.

We landed a couple red grouper on the first drops, and some nice bull reds, but just due gulf regs, had to toss them all back.  We found great bottom that looked like it had lots of fish, but they just weren't cooperating.  We had a call from Snapper Slapper on board the Reel Fiesty, and he gave us the report that the AJ' bite was on.  so we headed a couple miles to the rigs to see if we could find a fight.

We headed to the Unocal 255a since it was empty (no other boats in sight).  All the other rigs appeared to be tended by at least one boat.   Things started slow, the live bait just didn't seem to be working.  We boated a couple small fish, but no real hosses. 

I riggged up a diamond jig, motored back over to the SE corner of the rig, dropped, jigged, and bam!  Fish on!  We caught and released as many as we liked on jigs.  Everyone picked their best for the fish box as the reg's allowed us one each.  Jeremy had the best AJ at 23 lbs, and figured he had a lock on the largest fish of the day honors.  His last tip to the rigs he had the biggest fish of the day all but sewn up until his uncle Tim bested him on the last drop of the day. 

After we limited out on AJ's and everyone seemed content they had enough, we decided to head back over to the live bottom to see if we could find a good grouper.  They just didn't seem to be interested in anything we dropped.  We managed a 7 lb. red, but again it had to be released.  As we decided we'd make one more drop, we had a heavy hook up and hoped it would be the larger gag we were looking for.  After a lengthy battle from more than 200' deep, we finally had some color, gray....but too long, yes,...about a 6' shark, a hammerhead! 

He didn't like the boat, took off w/the drag screaming, and seemed to peel back off as much line as we started with.  He did it one more time before we finally got him alongside for some quick photo's and a release.  Sorry Jeremy, another uncle had stepped in to rob him again of the big fish honors.  Maybe next time!