Thread: Head boat fishing

I went out on the head boat, the Southerner, yesterday. the capt. was Tristain and the boat boy was Preston. I caught 8 b-liners, a ton of red snappers & triggers, of which we had to toss back. The Southerner out fished the 2nd boat, the Gulf Winds, from the Reel Surprise by a long ways. I not sure who the capt. was on the Gulf Winds. It wasn't Randy.

Sounds like a good trip.
Love those b-liners!
What size were they running?

Most of them were decent sized, 10" - 12". A lot of nice sized triggers, around the 15" - 18" range. FYI, it's -10 with a -30 wind chill back home in MN.

I'd take a limit of b-liners vs. 2 red snapper any day of the week.

Any porgies??

I didn't see any porgies in the box on our boat but some people had some porgies at the cleaning table from the Gulf Winds. A couple decent sized ones but most were smaller. Some of the Gulf Winds people also had some fish with red mouths, I have no idea what they were. Some people on our boat caught some strawberry groupers, which I had never seen before. I also caught some things that looked like sea bass, I don't know all the different kinds of fish you guys have down here Quite a few remoras were also caught on our boat and I thought that only the pier area had dibs on those. What do I know?

Small-ish fist with red/orange inside the mouth are tomtates or "ruby lips". They are ok to eat just don't get very big. We used them for AJ bait.

Thanks for the ID Carl. I've always caught them and only knew them by Ruby Red Lips, not their real name. See, you're never too old to learn something new!