Chandeleur Islands 2.5 day trip: Anything you didnt bring and wish you had?

hookers?

One of the attendees worked at a strip club for a long time and could probably easily convince a couple to come. Problem is logistics with getting them there.

Did one of those years ago, and it was a great experience. I brought a 12-pack of beer. The other 9 guys brought 110 cases.
If it is your first trip of that type, don't get stuck on one type of fishing. Hit the surf, hit the marsh, hit open water, hit the ponds. Do a little exploring on those small islands. It's great when you find a small pond with tailing reds in an unexpected spot.

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There is no way those got finished, huh

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There was some left, but not much. I had never seen anyone drink that much beer. Each guy would grab a case and head out in the morning. Then they'd come in for lunch and grab another case. They'd drink all evening and all night, then still be up a 6 a.m. to do it all over again.
ETA: We caught around 600 trout that trip. Obviously the deckhands can't clean all of that when they hit the dock, especially with out of town fishermen anxious to get on the road, So they clean them on the way back in, which is technically illegal. They said the agents understand this and for the most part look the other way, but they like to hit each boat once or twice a year and confiscate the filets to keep their and their families' freezers full. They try to spread it around and not hit the same boats too often.

600 spex would be nice!

We had a mix of specks and white trout. The white trout were so abundant in the surf, they were just shredding the plastics. At one point I just tore off a piece of rag and put it on the jighead when my pockets ran out of plastics. They were smashing that, so then I started throwing just a plain jighead with nothing on it. It was crazy. As soon as anything hit the water, they would be on it.

Definitely have a heavy duty rig set up for at night. When y'all are just sitting around on deck in the late evenings/nights bs'ing and drinking, have a couple big rigs with big bait out in the water. Something big will come along and hit it.

I had a 5 foot bonnet head shark smoke my super-spook. It was a fun arse fight. But yes sharks can be a problem. We typically caught 20-30 specs and some reds each morning and afternoon. Waded in a few spots and caught some big trout. Never made it to the beach.

Oh and at night turn on the lights and catch sand trout on plastic and lady fish the size of small tarpon on topwater. Its pretty cool because their eyes glow red and you can see them coming after it.

This is what I want to do one day a long time from now when I have my bachelor party

I brought a cast net.

We caught a huge bull shark while wading and fished from the flat after that. Be careful on the surf side of taking one over the transom.

This was years ago, so I know the islands have changed, but we didn't have the luxury of cell phones. A GPS would be worth having. We ran so far from the mother ship that we had to work our way in after dark, and kicked up sting rays for an hour when the tide went out on a flat.