10 Aug 08/Tile Limit

Well this trip was one of those trips where I kept flip flopping on whether to go. I’ll tell you what, looking at the weather and trying to make sense of what they say it’s going to do can drive a man to drinking. After cancelling then seeing the forecast improve a bit, we decided to go.

Crew was me, Brian and Cathy Hodson, Wes, and Ryan. Woke up at 3 am, checked the weather, winds 10 knots or less and radar was clear so we launched at 5:30 am. Seas were not bad but a storm developed ahead of us and the winds picked up to 15 knots or so. Storm moved a bit south so we missed it and pressed on to the Norfolk Canyon where we dropped in 320 feet of water. Double and triple hookups were the order of the day with a nice class of tiles most around 8 lbs. Had 2 over 10 lbs for Wes and Cathy. Got our limit of 35 tiles in short order by 10:30 am.

We then proceeded to drop for grouper on MeOff’s grouper hole but the winds kicked up to 20 knots or more and we could not hold bottom and I was having problems trying to hold the bow into the wind. The seas kept building and we decided to call it early rather than try to drop in building seas.

The run home sucked. The seas kept building and I tracked the monster storm on XM weather that looked it wreaked havoc in the bay and oceanfront. The dang thing was spread from OI to Ship Shoal Inlet. No way to go around the thing, can’t turn around, sitting still it would still catch me so we just plowed through it around the triangles. Long ride home with a slow, bouncy, steady ride home but we made it.

Caught some nice fish and made it home safely so it was a successful trip. Great crew and good times but glad to back on land. Next time, I’ll trust my initial instinct to cancel (or not) .