Snappa Time!

Red snapper season in the Florida Panhandle has become a no kidding phenomenon.  You don't need a big boat to snapper fish; you don't have to go far to find them; women and kids can catch them as well as men; and they are sinfully delicious to eat. So it is not surprising that fishing for red snapper is the delight of Everyman. And as the size limit has been increased (16 inches), the bag limit has been decreased (2 per person per trip regardless of age), and the season has been shortened (40 days this year), while, perversely, the fish have become larger and more numerous, an Oklahoma land rush mentality has set in about the opening of snapper season.  People in these parts talk about its approach the way children talk about the coming of Christmas. The week before last, Nick at West Marine said to me by way of greeting as I entered the store, "Eight days and thirteen hours until snapper season opens." When I arrived in Destin this past Thursday around 2 PM, Terry Cloer,  the building manager, stopped me in the condo garage to remind me that snapper season would be open in ten hours.  As if I didn't know.

The fact that June 1 was blustery and the forecast was for 2 to 4 foot seas that were in fact more like 3 to 5 deterred almost no one. As the first hint of light signaled the approaching dawn, a veritable torrent of boats large and small began to pour out of East Pass into the Gulf of Mexico.  They came first by the dozen and then by the  score as I watched from my balcony. ( I said almost no one was deterred by the forecast, but I was, as my crew included a four year old girl and a sea shy seven year old boy.) In ten years of watching, I have never seen such a swarm of vessels of every size and description debouch from the Pass, nor had any of the locals to whom I have since spoken.  The photo below is a very thin slice of the very wide panorama of the hundred plus boat fleet that bobbed in the Pass or just beyond fishing for live bait on Friday morning.

And Saturday and Sunday were worse, as folks did not have to go to work and the weather was fine. At dawn on Saturday, Wayne Lewis called Jughead on the bait boat to see about picking up some live bait for Bella Maria, only to be told that the bait they had spent all night netting had sold out by 4:30 AM. Jughead said they were trying to net more, but had 57 boats on the wait list. There were even two sailboats intent on snapper fishing in the Pass catching bait, for Christ's sake. From East Pass Towers Marina alone, six boats joined the fray - Bella Maria, Just Teasing, Anonymous, Captain Kidd, Outta Here, and, yes, Hammerhead.

Aboard Hammerhead were Papa, his Miss Mary (aka Mama), the Songer grandchildren (Freeman, Marcus, and Daisy), and their father, Eric. We departed at a leisurely 8:00 AM, and headed for our go to secret spot (the Navarre Barge), which has never let us down and where we have never had more than one other boat for company, and then only twice in probably ten trips.  There were four boats on the wreck when we arrived, but we wedged in and went to work with a will. It was very slow going for the first hour and a half, during which time all of our neighbors but one moved on to look for greener pastures.  We were practically gunwale to gunwale with the remaining center console when the rod held by the obvious father and captain of the young family that was crewing the center console bowed over.  Nice snapper.  As soon as his bait was back in the water, deja vu all over again: fish on.  We were so close I could almost read the lettering on the pocket of the guy's tee shirt, but a whole lot of nothing was happening on Hammerhead.  What was wrong with us? Maybe we weren't holding our mouths right or something.

"I am beginning to get an inferiority complex" I called out to no one in particular. Mary responded with a grunt as a big fish inhaled her bait, bent her rod, and pulled drag.  And I noticed Eric was wedged into the corner of the cockpit pumping and reeling on what appeared to be a good fish.  The bite was on.

There then ensued some fine examples of Cooperative Fishing, a rapidly emerging family sport best practiced while bottom fishing. Below you see Mary and Marcus working in tandem to bring a big sow snapper to the boat, with Freeman standing by with the gaff.  Mary has Marcus wedged between her knees and is pumping the rod.  Marky has the rod butt in his fighting belt and is turning the handle on the reel.

The fruit of their labors, including the handiwork of the Freemanator on the gaff, is shown in the photo below.

Not to be outdone, Eric and Daisy used the same technique to achieve a similar result, Papa on the gaff.

And so it went until it was done, at around noon. Bang, bang, just like that.

When the weekend was over,  all the boats that had ventured out from East Pass Marina limited out on red snapper. The palm for the largest fish went to Bella Maria, which in addition to limiting out, caught an 80 pound cobia over natural bottom on half of a dead cigar minnow.

The nod for most fish went to Outta Here, a 65 foot Viking with 21 people on board, who caught 42 red snapper.  Below is the arm of Grasshopper (know to his mother as Andrew Dover), the mate on Outta Here, who kept score with a magic marker to make sure they did not go over the limit in the excitement of the slaughter.

But the Biggest Red Snapper Sweepstakes, which I just invented, was won by Hammerhead, which placed first with a 19.5 pounder, second with an 18.5 pounder, and tied for third with Bella Maria and Outta Here with a 13 pounder. Below are the first place fish on the right, the second place fish on the left, and the Junior Angler of the Day, Female Division, in the center.

Now, by my lights, snapper fishing don't hold a patch to blue water fishing when it comes excitement and satisfaction, but it's a ton of fun for all hands, and something to look forward to each summer. As I write, there are only 38 days and about one hour left in this snapper season, but you don't need to mention this anywhere west of Tallahassee. Everyone knows how much time is left. To the minute