It was rainy and overcast Saturday morning as I left camp at Bay St. Louis to meet Charles Thomas and some of his family. We agreed to meet at the Hwy. 603 exit off I-10 at about 6 am and then I would join them on the ride to Biloxi where the charter fishing boat was docked. Charles's son, Bruce, was in the other vehicle with the rest of the entourage. It rained all the way to Biloxi, rained while we boarded the boat, the Happy Hooker, and continued raining while the boat's twin Cat diesel 470 horsepower engines effortlessly cruised us along at about 18 knots. If the name Happy Hooker sounds familiar, it may be because, according to the US Coast Guard registry, there are 28 boats registered in the USA by that name. Five of them also carry II behind their name.
Anyhow, back to the fishing. After cruising along for a short while, we stopped just about midway between Cat Island and Ship Island, and just west of the Gulfport ship channel, an area that I was very familiar with. It continued to rain as the crew set up the fishing rods and the rest of the folks except for Charles and I started fishing in about 14 feet or water. Right off the bat, they started catching small sharks, about three to five pounds each. This continued for a couple of hours and finally the rain stopped and the sun came out. That didn't affect the fishing though and suddenly Eddie's son, Christopher tied onto a huge fish, which after he landed it, turned out to be a 60 pound cobia. We kept most of the sharks and the cobia, of course, and after the fishing changed as they started catching sting rays, the Skipper decided to move on. He was concerned about the weather though and considered the possibility of cutting the trip short, but then decided to head back home but set up and troll for reds just about 8 miles out from, and well within sight of, the harbor. That turned out to be a good choice because we managed to bring in 4 nice bull reds, all about 25 pounds each during the short time we trolled here.
Here's a photo of some of the day's catch. The reds are at the left, sharks on the right and the cobia is on the
table top. Not all of the fish are shown here.
