Had a Monday - Friday trip the week before the 4th. My only experience fishing here was off the jetty’s in December. I wanted to make about a 50 mile trip offshore but the wind never cooperated. Used my fishfinder to locate offshore man made structures. First fish was on before I could get my daughters friends bait on. She reeled in what ended up being the only keeper snapper of the day. It was all good though because I wanted to put my daughter and her friend on fish for a memorable experience for their first time offshore. We hit the jackpot on undersized snapper. We fished their for hours until we decided to seek the shelter of a couple of rigs that were nearby.
We weren’t the only boat there when we got there but they were tied up in the sun so I hit spotlock in the shade near them. It was all undersized snapper, shark, and catfish here as well.
On a side note, the guys in the Cobia next to us here was expert level in shark catching. Great fun for me and the girls to watch them land them.
This is where I decided to try a little technique I use at home with a 2 oz slab off the bottom. I only got one snapper that way but I did entice quite a few big trout in the boat along with one barracuda.
Ended up the day hitting another rig nearby with similar results before calling it a day at 4
The story of what I think is a sheepshead. The guys catching sharks next to us and me got great joy over watching my daughter and her friend use a baited rig to lure that fish into my net as they scooped it out of the water. This took a great deal of time and trial and error and when success was finally achieved there was great jubilation.

That's a spadefish.

Awesome trip, thanks for sharing.

The nnear shore rigs are pretty much covered with undersize snapper. Especially if you're using squid. That pig fish in pic number 6 should've been sent back down as bait.

Good to know. If I wanted more bait I could have just thrown my net and got all the menhaden I wanted lol.

I did also catch a hardtail that I freelined for a while. Never got a bite.