Captain’s Corner for July 13 Dave Zalewski 397-8815

On a recent trip offshore we made several stops and never had a fish in the box or even a bite. Nevertheless both the party we had onboard with their grandchildren and myself were pleased. The first stop netted 2 mylar balloons that were probably released on land at a party, drifted over water , lost their helium and were floating. When the color washes off them and they become translucent, they resemble jellyfish which are food for turtles and other sea creatures. Ingestion of a balloon may result in a turtle death or serious injury. The second stop was to pick up bait boxes that had been discarded by thoughtless fisherman who may or may not have realized that these boxes are plasticized to make them waterproof and are not biodegradable.
Next was a floating foam buoy with about 20 feet of line floating behind it, just waiting to end someone’s day when it became entangled in a propeller. Last stop was to pick up a beach ball which became property of the kids. If everyone took the short time it takes to pick up floating trash the gulf would be in an even healthier state than it is in.
Call it Karma or whatever you choose, when we continued to the 80 foot depths over Swiss cheese bottom the bottom fish cooperated. Grandparents and grandchildren all fell asleep on the way in after catching red grouper, Lane, vermillion, and mangrove snapper, along with white grunts. Gag grouper, which are now open, failed to cooperate. We started the kids on light tackle 2 hook snapper rigs and it did not take grand mom long to ask to be switched from the grouper tackle when she saw how much fun the kids were having