marines putting in the work! and rewarded!

​Today's charter was great, getting out on the boat today with Shipley,  Richard and Patrick. Richard and Patrick are Marines who just finished their basic, and are off for the weekend. Thank you for your service gentleman. 
The guys were staying on Ft Myers Beach, so we headed offshore to go play tug of war with some grouper. On the run out, lots of bait schools moving around with some flipping up on top. We picked up about 2 dozen Spanish sardines to go along with the the dozen or so horse pilchards I picked up at A span. (Bait was tough this morning). Our first drops were some lane and vermillion snapper. We put a few in the box ad continued out. The next stop resulted in a great bite, with all 6 of our keeper grouper going into the box (3 man limit, 2 per person). We lost the tug of war to a few BIG girls, but we also landed a few of them with the biggest at 30.5 inches. We moved out a bit deeper and found some good sized lanes and vermillion to add to the box. An american red was caught as well. They will come home in just a few short days from now (season open June 1st-3rd recreational...I can fish them till July 19th) With plenty of meat, we tried running to a deep wreck but there was already someone sitting directly on top of it. We began working back in and made a stop at the Fantastico. Lots of boats in the area, and ran into a buddy of mine out there as well. We hooked into a few BIG bottom dwellers that evaded us and got into the wreck. The cudas wanted to play with the flat line but kept short striking, biting thru the leader, and even bit above the metal leader twice. With a long run back, we called it a day and enjoyed a nice ride home. We were greeted a few times by dolphins who wanted to play. 
Weather is supposed to be good the next few days l.. get out and fish!