This trip actually happened yesterday (Thursday Aug 16th). My friend Neal (Stowaway) set up an inshore grouper trip with Captain Larry Malinoski (FishHawk), Neal, his son, and myself! We met up around 9 am at Shell Point Marina, talked for a few and then headed out. It started out looking like it was going to be a gorgeous day and we were ready!



Our first attempt at trolling was a little tough...we were broken off twice by MONSTER grouper. We were out for about 45 minutes maybe and it started looking like we needed to head back in or Mother Nature was going to show us how she gets down.

So, we headed in and talked for about an hour, then I made Captain Larry sit through one of my amateur interviews :laughing:

About an hour and a half or so later it started looking pretty decent and radar didn't show any storms too close to us, so we decided to head back out again and give it another run...and good thing we did!

The first big fish was fought and taken in by Stowaway Jr and it was a beautiful 27 incher!



A very short time later I hooked into this guy! :hooked:



A monster 31 inch gag grouper INSIDE Tampa Bay! Yes, that's right! A 31 incher IN the bay!



After a few more shorts it was getting pretty hot out there so we decided to call it a day. Amazing day on the water!

Thanks for the amazing trip Neal and Captain Larry!

Would you guys look at this filet! It's way bigger than my wife's head AND it's about 4 inches thick easily...I separated the two filets into meals for my wife, my son, and myself and it made 6 whole meals ;-[]-



Here's one of them! Yes, I got too excited to eat it and forgot to take a picture until after I already ate half my piece :laughing:



Here's a short clip filmed and put together by Neal of his son and me reeling in our beasts!

Now that's what I'm talkin about!! Awesome fish Dave. Looks delicious. Stowaway Jr's fish is nice too. Great video of the action Neal. Fishhawk - you are the man!

Sweet video! I think all that FishHawk catches in the bay are big gags. I'm jealous. haha That beast would feed a village

Wow, just simply amazing.

That was good. :thumbsup:

Way to go, Dave! :@))

Great job guys! Great video Neil, I need to get back to some saltwater! Fishing is slow here in Indiana. I'm going to try and learn that Tampa Bay Grouper fishing when I get back. Freaky

Good report and great fish! =]

nice fish Dave !!!!!! lets go catch em !

That's awesome Dave! great pics great video and best of all great fish!

So awesome

Nice report and fish .

very cool video, looks like you'll be eating good :thumbsup: