Trip to VK340 - AJs-Snappers-APs on August 24, 2019© Photos Posted by Mark Primo Miller © Hi-Res Source
Onboard was Colton Causey of Pensacola, Doug Fontaine of Houston/Moss Point, and John Cefalu of Slidell. We headed toward Alabama since the Bluewater charts showed green water all over out deep. Also, Alabama had recently closed their Red Snapper season but since Mississippi was still open we could go fish the federal waters South of Alabama. Indeed it was a stark contrast to My June 1 Trip when Alabama had their opening day of Red Snapper and there were boats everywhere you went. We stopped at a spot we picked up on that day and the water turned Red with snapper at the boat. All we could catch were little guys but I knew there had to be some bigger ones that just couldn't get to the baits so we switched to Spears and pretty much had our limit of big girls in the boat and it was only 9:30am. We then stopped by the Dauphin Island Bridge Rubble where I was hoping to find a Mangrove Snapper or two. I made a dive and found a nice one but he broke off, stirred up the bottom, and was able to elude me. Then we made a decision to run out to VK340 to try and get some AJs and APs even though we knew the water was green. It turned out to be a good choice as the water opened up a mere 10-20 feet below the surface. There were plenty of AJs and a nice school of APs. Everyone got an AP except mine broke off at the surface as I was pulling him over to the boat. We got 2 AJs and could have easily gotten more but we had plenty of meat. I even had to break out the Fish Bag and we were low on Ice. So we headed on in and crossed the mouth of the Pascagoula River before 5pm which is unheard of for my trips. I also got some nice Sunrise photos on the way out. It was a grand day in the Gulf with some great guys that encompassed 139 miles, 90 gallons of fuel, and 11 hours.
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