4th of july- natures fireworks and plenty of fish!

7/4 we headed out a little over 50 miles to look for some grouper.  Bite was solid until about 11ish when it just shut down.  Yvette picked up a gorgeous lane snapper that hit 19 inches along with a solid red grouper. Her husband Chris also had a hot hand picking up 2 more stud grouper along with some nice lane snapper up to 16 inches for the box .  Patrick had some lane snapper also to 16", and  the biggest grouper of the day which was right before the bite shut down.  While everyone was bottom bumping, a school of peanut mahi came around.  I tried throwing squid, pilchards, threadfin, pinfish, and shrimp at them to no avail. a naked 1/16 ounce chartreuse jighead was more than they could resist and i put 3 in the box.  We lost a couple other big grouper that just weren't ready to become dinner. With some severe weather on the horizon, and some gnarly lightning strikes, I made the call to head on in to celebrate the 4th! Hope everyone had a great 4th!