January cancellations- Im going fishing!

So with a nice weather window and not 1 but 2 cancellations this week, it was time to run out and bend some rods. Tom and Rick joined me for a late start. We left from Punta Rassa boat ramp to head off for some deep sea fishing off SWFL. around 9pm on tuesday, hoping to get out to the 180 ft depths and find some big girls ready to eat. We made a few stops on the way out to catch bait. A mix of Pinfish and Spot tails were added to the livewell for the long ride out. To my surprise, there wasnt a whole lot of bottom activity to be seen on the ride out.  The few shows we did see ended up being big balls of squirrel fish.. that was even in deep 150+ ft of water... Once to the end destination, we circled around but didnt have much of a show.  We dropped down the anchor and put out a chum bag... Tide was running back up the anchor line opposed to the wind. 
We spent about an hour or two here with no luck.  Tried pulling anchor and it was stuck hard... ended up loosing the anchor... 
We made our way back in stopping at spots along the way.  More shows of squirrel fish.... 
We ran back in and our luck swung in the 120 ft line.  We set up on a wreck in search of some ajs for the box.  We were not dissappointed.  3 baits down had 3 immediate hookups. All 3 fish landed... 
Theis story continued thru much of the morning into the early afternoon. AJs and barracuda made up the majority of our hook ups. Tom got to use his new butterfly jigs with some pretty good success. He had a nice 20-25 lb jack crevalle at the surface that popped his leader when he tried to lift it by the leader... 
A couple red grouper were added out in 115 ft of water, and another in the 70ish ft range. 
Had a blast fishing with you guys and looking forward to doing it again!
Tight Lines!  ​