A unique website dedicated to fishing information from Florida's Northern Big Bend. This includes the area from the Econfina River west to the Apalachicola River
Use this area to post inshore fishing reports from the area. Please try to include relevant information such as:
Location, date, time, water conditions, weather conditions, baits, techniques, species caught, etc.
Fished Econfina Saturday with my wife, a buddy and his wife. Launched the boat around 8:30 and was thankful to find plenty of water still in the river. We headed east and quickly found some trout on our first drift. Another boat pulled in right behind us on our drift. They proceeded to drift around us (not catching anything), then motored around in front of our drift back to our original starting point!
After that the bite slowed and I moved to another spot and found a few more shorts. Headed back west around 11:30 and found a few keeper trout. Around 2:00 we headed in and quickly found the reds. The first bite was a bigun that broke me off. We completed our 4 man (man/woman) limit in about an hour capping off a nice day on the water. Total for the day: about 40 short trout with 3 keepers, 2 short black sea bass, 1 big blue, 1 big sailcat, and 4 slot reds.
i tell you what, i think the idiot bus is pulling up at the econ ramp about every day now and offloading a whole bus load. i have never seen so many folks that are so clueless about fishing manners as this year. i can never remember people being so disrespectful fishing. last trip down a few weeks back we had two guys come within 30 feet of the boat and start a drift DOWN FROM US. i couldn't believe it. just really ruins a nice day of fishing for no reason at all.
volguy wrote:i tell you what, i think the idiot bus is pulling up at the econ ramp about every day now and offloading a whole bus load. i have never seen so many folks that are so clueless about fishing manners as this year. i can never remember people being so disrespectful fishing. last trip down a few weeks back we had two guys come within 30 feet of the boat and start a drift DOWN FROM US. i couldn't believe it. just really ruins a nice day of fishing for no reason at all.
Same thing at St MArks lighthouse ramp yesterday. We had a guy just about back his Chaparral "flats" boat into my trailer as he unloaded, at a 45 degree angle across both lanes of the ramp, doing 15 mph backwards; then he made his teenage son walk it into the water up to this waist at 7am. Made me wonder how he makes it back to the ramp each time he goes out---
It's not just the inshore boats that need to learn some manners, we had an offshore boat with 4 guys run right through us and about 5 other boats running wide open. I kept motioning for him to slow down(doing the hand-down real quick movement, hey it might not work) but he looked right at me and flew on by. It looked like a guide boat, had some kinda sticker on the starboard rear end the was shaped like a fish and said Reel Time or something like that. I hope they didn't catch a durn thing.Wife looked at me like I was crazy as I hollered at him when he went by.
I'm glad to see that Panama City is not the only place where rude idiots fish. While my father and I were fishing on Sunday a boat was cruising by further off the hill and witnessed my father fighting a fish. They immediately came off plane, did a U turn and fell in behind us in our drift only 150 yards or so behind us. Watched them catch what looked like a few shorts while we stroked keeper after keeper. After 25-30 minutes or so of following they had the nerve to pull up next to us and ask how we were fishing and what we were using for bait!
OFFSHORE BOAT ARE GETTING FREE NUMBERS WHEN THEY PASS BY. RADER MAKE IT EVEN EASIER TO GET THEM. NEVER FIGHT A FISH IN PLAIN EYESIGHT OF ANOTHER BOAT. IF IT'S YOUR BEST NUMBER BETTER TO PACK-UP AND LEAVE
volguy wrote:i tell you what, i think the idiot bus is pulling up at the econ ramp about every day now and offloading a whole bus load. i have never seen so many folks that are so clueless about fishing manners as this year. i can never remember people being so disrespectful fishing. last trip down a few weeks back we had two guys come within 30 feet of the boat and start a drift DOWN FROM US. i couldn't believe it. just really ruins a nice day of fishing for no reason at all.
Same thing at St MArks lighthouse ramp yesterday. We had a guy just about back his Chaparral "flats" boat into my trailer as he unloaded, at a 45 degree angle across both lanes of the ramp, doing 15 mph backwards; then he made his teenage son walk it into the water up to this waist at 7am. Made me wonder how he makes it back to the ramp each time he goes out---
I think I saw this guy too, had the engine running before it was in the water
Yeah, behavior like what we're all talking is making it kinda hard to teach my teenager about good boating and fishing ettiquette.
I say stuff like, "Give that boat some respect and pass him real wide on the upwind side."
He says stuff like, "Why should we, no body gives us any respect."
To fish, or not to fish, . . . those are the answers.
Wow...and its not even scallop season yet!! Cant wait if this is a sign of things to come. I drove past the Lanark landing on Sat afternoon and it looked like a nightmare too.
BrogensDuck wrote:Wow...and its not even scallop season yet!! Cant wait if this is a sign of things to come. I drove past the Lanark landing on Sat afternoon and it looked like a nightmare too.
We usually stay at my buddy's place at Keaton 4th of July weekend.. for some good times, we take the golf cart to the public ramp at the end of the canal at bout 6ish-
Pop top, sitback, enjoy. Nothing better than the Keaton Karnival.
BrogensDuck wrote:Wow...and its not even scallop season yet!! Cant wait if this is a sign of things to come. I drove past the Lanark landing on Sat afternoon and it looked like a nightmare too.
We usually stay at my buddy's place at Keaton 4th of July weekend.. for some good times, we take the golf cart to the public ramp at the end of the canal at bout 6ish-
Pop top, sitback, enjoy. Nothing better than the Keaton Karnival.
While I was getting the truck(during last scallop season at Keaton) my wife said some fool came in and struck every boat in the basin(except mine she pushed him off with the short push pole) Dang idiots are going to kill somebody!!
Still a good day. We were there and yes there was a bunch of rude idiots out there too. 
