Outdoors Column | A bigger boat opens up opportunities to catch bigger fish
Capt. Tim Noe is at home in deep Gulf of Mexico waters. He’s grown up fishing for trophy bottom fish like grouper, snapper, amberjack and more.
With a recent upgrade in boats, he’s now getting much out deeper, much faster, than he could ever dream of.
“We cruise about 42 to 45 mph. On a 14-hour trip we’re fishing 120-130 miles offshore,” Noe said. “That means we’re getting eight or nine hours of fishing time in and that’s something not many can do.”
Noe’s new boat, a 42-foot Freeman Catamaran, is powered by quad 350- Mercury Marine outboards. That cruising speed doubles his previous boat and now he has found himself exploring even more deeper waters of the Gulf. Last week that almost produced a world record from 470 feet of water.
“There’s a new area we kind of stumbled upon. Every time I go out there we find something new. I’m kind of piecing it together. Now that I have the boat with that capability we can check it often. There’s miles and miles of ledges and we kind of just see what fish are on what part,” Noe explained.
Rigging both electric and hand cranked tackle his main targets are scamp grouper and champaign porgies. Other fish include grouper species like yellow edge, snowy, and kitty mitchell. Tilefish make a regular appearance, as well as big red snapper.
“Each hooked fish we look down to see what’s coming up. We had been catching a few big red snapper so as a fish came up and we looked and thought it was another one. Then when it got to the surface we saw the tell tale yellow eye so gaffed it and got it in the boat!”
The big yellow eye, or silk snapper, looks extremely similar to a red snapper between the color and shape of the fish. However, the eyes are a bright yellow and the tail usually has yellow in it, as well. It’s more commonly caught in deeper waters than red snapper, and the world record is 18 pounds, 5ounces by angler James Taylor from Venice, Fla., in 1986.
“I knew it was a big one, easily the biggest I had ever seen,” Noe noted when he got it in the boat. “We weighed it at almost 15 pounds, just shy of the record.”
A world record might not be far away for Noe, who plans to offer the 14-hour deepwater trips year round. He can be reached at 407-436-6268 or through his website gulfcoast-offshore.com/.
For recreational anglers who may have missed it, red snapper will also have a “mini” season once again this year. Anglers will be hoping for better weather than last year, when it was rough for nearly the entire season.
The six days will be Oct. 17-18, 24-25 and Oct. 31-Nov. 1. Bag limit will still be 2 per person with a 16-inch minimum.