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 offshore 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.
Well, I couldn't make the flotilla event this weekend because we had scheduled our second annual Destin snapper charter for that day. Last year, we had rough seas but caught plenty of fish. This year, beautiful weather but the fishing was a little slower. We stopped in the pass and caught plenty of threadfins but the captain was looking for cigars and speedos (sardines?) so we kept moving around looking for them but never found many. So, we headed out with what we had. Because we had quite a few hard tails, the captain decided to make the first stop an AJ hole. Within 5 minutes of dropping bait down we were cut off on two lines -- barracudas. So, we re-rigged with wire and put the baits back out. Caught a small cuda and a 20-pounder within a few minutes but then they shut down. Trolled hard tails on the downrigger trying to get down to the AJ's but no luck. Threw baits at some dolphin that were milling around but they wouldn't take a bait. Oh well, off to another spot to bottom fish. Hit several spots pulling a fish or two off of each -- red snapper and red grouper. Then, on one spot we saw black snapper up near the surface. They would not hit a live or dead bait until we re-rigged with flouro leaders and small circle hooks. That did the trick and we boated some nice fish with some going 24"-26" which I'm told is a good size for black snapper. We ended the day with 9 black snapper, 7 red snapper, 5 red grouper, one small king (about 8-10 pounds) and two cudas. Didn't exactly load the boat but not bad. I believe if we had been able to catch more cigar minnows we would have done better on the snapper -- other than one big 'un I caught, the snapper wouldn't eat the threadfins. Also would have been good if that "monkey boat" hadn't tried to come up on us while we were on a good bite. Of course, as soon as he gets close the captain has us pull up lines and move so he doesn't have his spot marked.
Overall though it was a great trip. Best part was spending the time with my 13-old son who made the trip with us. I'll send a pic to Tom and maybe he can post it for me. Had grilled snapper and barracuda last night for dinner. Never had cuda before but it was quite good.
“Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.”
