Jon Chapman's Outdoors: Anglers enjoy fishing frenzy in Gulf of Mexico with break in weather

The Gulf of Mexico has been so rough since the start of 2016 that it has resembled Alaska's Bering Sea with "Deadliest Catch"-type weather.

Sunday's forecast is more of the same with NOAA calling seas of 6 to 10 feet. Monday night looks to be 10- to 14-foot seas before "calming" back down to 5- to 7-foot seas on Wednesday. Beautiful forecast, right?

For the past month, I've been attempting to get out with Jay Travis of team SeaVeeChe to show him hogfishing. There was a very small window of good weather last weekend between fronts, so along with Travis' fishing teammates Brian Beukema, Tony DeStefano and Geoff Szymanski, we pushed off last Sunday with 2-foot seas, nearly 40 dozen shrimp and all intentions of catching some tasty fish.

Our plan was to fish larger, natural bottoms. Large rock piles and ledges seem to hold fish better after rough weather. Our first stop 20 miles west of Bean Point showed fish on the Furuno bottom finder, and we anchored to start fishing.

Porgies were the first fish to show up from the rocky bottom. We were dropping half shrimp on various rigs from half-ounce jigheads, nekid ball jigs and 1-ounce sliding egg sinkers held with a swivel 2 feet above the hooks. Everyone dropped light spinning rods adding to the fun.

It wasn't long before mangrove snapper began eating along with a few yellowtail snapper. As they were being added to the box, Travis had something test his newly built MHX rod and Cabo 4000 spinning reel while DeStefano was hooked up as well. Travis worked up about a 17-pound gag grouper, while DeStefano would land the first hogfish of the day.

For the next hour, the bite was on fire. More gag grouper, mangrove snapper, yellowtail snapper and hogfish were caught as baits were eaten instantly. The only point at which the bite slowed was when the boat swung off the bigger rocks, so we decided to run to a big ledge in about 70 feet of water.

The gag grouper were first to show their presence after the move. About half a dozen legal-sized gags were landed and released before the snapper and hogfish took over once again.

For about 90 minutes, the bite was on again. The box was filling up during what was an incredible display of fish catching. We added many more fish to the box before moving once again to another ledge, also in 70 feet.

No surprise to us, the bite was on again. Travis and Beukema were hooking mangrove snapper or hogfish on nearly every drop with a half-ounce jighead. I grabbed my camera to film just how phenomenal it was.

Soon we were releasing legal-sized mangrove snapper after catching so many. When it was all said and done, we probably caught 50 to 60 mangrove snapper, releasing half of them, 15-hogfish and loads of other snapper, grunts, porgies and grouper.

The bite was nothing short of spectacular, probably the best span of daytime snapper fishing I've seen in a long, long time. We left them biting at three spots with a box full of fish to head home and clean.

Now, if we can only get good weather, I have no doubt the fishing offshore will still be great. I'll be ready with a livewell full of shrimp, a light spinning rod and plenty of jigheads.

This story was originally published February 6, 2016 at 9:34 PM with the headline "Jon Chapman's Outdoors: Anglers enjoy fishing frenzy in Gulf of Mexico with break in weather ."