Goodbye Grouper hello fish tacos

Well, now that the water has cooled down and Gag Grouper fishing in the Tampa Bay region is closed to recreational harvest...Gag Grouper fishing in the Tampa Bay region is on fire, right now. Go figure that Gag Grouper had been very scarce on our fishing charters in the past several months, you know,..pretty much from about July 1st to about December 3rd..hmmm. It's almost as if the people that make the up the rules are doing these closures on purpose, like stripping away a viable resource from the average working guy and handing it over to a more 'important group of fishermen'. Anyway, in this day and age you can expect even more lunacy to occur as we experience a "transfer of power and wealth" from the educated working class to the ignorant and corrupt. Okay then, I will now step down from the soapbox. Just had to get that off my chest, again!

I think we should rely on actual numbers and 'values' of a fishery and start asking guys like Robert Weeren what they think about it. A recent 6 hour fishing charter out of Pass-a-grille, St.Pete Beach put Robert, Eric and Todd in the middle of a Grouper catching frenzy that they were not expecting, given the advertised "state of the fishery". Check out Robert with one of many big Gag Groupers caught, and released, that day. 4 would be keeper Gags, 8 would be keeper Red Groupers, 60 plus grey snapper, a handful of large Mangrove Snappers, Flounder, Seabass and Porgies...man the Gulf of Mexico is in serious trouble, huh Robert?

For what it's worth, yesterdays 4 hour fishing charter went the same way...nothing but fishing success in troubled waters, damn we must just be that good! Call Jawbreaker fishing charters today and book a research trip of your own, oh and we can still keep grunts...fish tacos anyone? Happy fishing folks, Capt. Dan