Paul Stroud & Crew - July 21, 2002
The crew consisted of Paul Stroud, Gordon Cannon, Eric Williams, and Chris Lester. Paul, Gordon, and Eric are from the Hattiesburg area, and Chris is from Philadelphia, Pensylvania. Conditions were looking very favorable up until 3 AM the morning of departure when a squall blew thru boasting 47 knot gusts at the Ocean Springs Buoy. The squall was short lived and we headed out. Seas kicked up a tad that kept us from making a serious long run, but we ventrued out about 50 miles before seeking live bait. A heavy green water layer was on top with no bait activity anywhere. We started at FH-7, but it was obvious we were fishing behind fishermen of the great Alabama Deep Sea Rodeo. We went toward the Southeast hoping to get past the green muck but seemed to run short on time as we kept stopping along the way picking up red snapper. We still couldn't find the live bait we needed to target Amberjack and they just wouldn't seem to hit a jig, so I had to go down just to satisfy my suspicion that they were there. The heavy muck was about 20 feet deep and opened up into 200 feet of vis but low light due to the muck. Plenty of AJs and some nice Snapper, but just not biting well and lots of current running opposite directions. Green on top running West and Blue underneath running hard Eastward. We started north and got out of the muck just as we got to the Murphy Rigs. The water was looking good and even sighted a flying fish who thought we were a big Marlin. Just as we were about to start fishing, we were greeted by a squall. We put up the weather curtain and pushed on north, passing up the fishing, eventually clearing the squall and stopping a few more places on the way to the dock. We didn't land any real monsters this trip, but caught a nice mess of fish and had a great time. Paul gets the big fish award for an 18 pound snapper, but Gordon may have had the most with all those doubles he kept dragging in. But who was counting? Total Trip encompassed 13 hours and 144 miles. Below are the pictures.
(Click on Images to Enlarge for Printing)

Paul with the first shark	Eric with first in the box Trigger	Paul with first in the box Snapper
Paul Hooks Up	Paul says "Now this is Snapper Fishing!"	Paul starting out good with an 18 Pounder
Gordon doubles his pleasure	Gordon keeps trying to out fish Paul...	Eric imitates a snappers decompression problem
Paul boats another Snapper	Gordon thinks this may be it...	Nope, another double...
Paul keeps working...	Chris says he can catch doubles too!	Gordon keeps going with his doubles...
Paul steadily working them...	Eric's hooked a big...???	Gordon still doubling up
Paul can catch double too!	But the singles seem bigger	Hey, This is Fun!
Gordon's just a snappin	Chris catches a double	Paul is steady and consistent
Gordon is steady too!	Chris/Paul with Trigger/Snapper	Paul lands a Black Snapper
Paul shows off another angle	and another view...	Gordon can do this too!
Hey, Where did this come from?	The Take Home...	Another View...
Happy Crew

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