JUNE 1st ARS and gag opener!

With some great looking weather forecasted, and the opening of red snapper and grouper season on the horizon, it was time to get a crew together for an overnighter. 
Assembled the charter crew of all SWFL fishing club members. Lee, Tom, Eric, Mike, Rick and Nick met up at Pineland Marina where we loaded up all our gear for the overnighter. We pushed off the dock right around 7PM. We stopped just outside Captiva pass and loaded up on live pinfish and assorted other baits for our run out deep. 
In the darkness we pushed out to the first 30 miles or so and set up over some decent marks on the bottom. We picked away at a few decent lane snapper and added a couple really Fat mangrove snapper to the box. With midnight approaching, we pushed out to the Red snapper grounds. We stopped in 167 ft of water and the machine lit up like a Christmas tree. 
We dropped down a mix of different baits and we were rewarded with quailty red snapper coming up one after another. A few big hits and breakoffs, and had everyone switching to bigger gear.  Almost instantly, Tom hooks up on drag screamer... Up comes a solid 30+ inch gag. A minute or two later Mike doubles over and he too puts a 30+" gag in the boat. We continued catching red snapper one after another and made the decision to not keep anything smaller than 20".  Over the course of the night we caught,vented and released well over 100 snapper. A few nice red grouper we're also added to the box thru the night. 
With a solid box of fish and a limit of red snapper already in the box, with the sun rising, we moved in a little shallower to pick up a few more grouper. We worked a few spots and managed a few more red grouper. Mike worked his jig over the bottom and picked up our largest gag of the day.
Looking around the boat, everyone looked pretty tired and rightly so. With the night bitehot as it was, no one left the rail all night. 
Ponied up the Salty Beast and set the autopilot for the ride back home. 
Was a great night with everyone and hoping we can do it again soon. 
I left my phone in the truck so I am still receiving pics from everyone from the trip, but enjoy the pics!