Bad weather, good fishing in Carrabelle

[SoleSearcher]

Choppy seas, scattered thunderstorms, rain and queasy stomachs plagued my offshore charter today. However, the fish weren't bothered by bad weather and greeted our hooks with vicious bites.

The plan of the day was to head deep to the SE and hit a few spots in 90 feet of water where I've been doing very well. But I quickly changed the game plan after reaching the East Pass where large swells and choppy seas rolling in from the SE, along with ugly skies forced me to hit a few holes to the SW within 10 miles of the pass.

Our first stop was a nice rock pile in 48 foot of water which had a boat sitting right in the center of the best structure. After a quick look around the area which revealed a bottom full of trash fish, I headed out another 2 miles to an area which is mostly live bottom.

We anchored up on a good looking stack and found hungry Grouper hitting the lies as fast as you could drop them down. Within the hour, we picked up 7 Gags and 1 Red, along with big Seabass, Triggerfish, and 2 Black Snapper. The Red was the big fish near 15 lbs. All the Gags were around 23 inches.

A monster waterspout dropped down in advance of a thunderstorm just to our NW (about a mile away) and the winds kicked the seas up enough to make my party feel queasy and scared so we headed inshore to wait out the storms. Mackerel and Blues kept everyone busy while we waited on the weather to improve, but it looked like another storm was headed this way. With that, we called it a day.

I usually don't fish shallow water this time of year if I can help it, but when I do, I scale the tackle down and use medium action rods like Penn Powergraph, 30 Lb test line, 4 to 6 Oz egg sinkers, long leaders made from 30 lb Fluorocarbon, and #4 Mustad hooks baited with either fresh cut LY's, small whole LY's or my favorite, live Pilchards. Let the Grouper have a little slack line and hook themselves. This method seems to work the best for me when fishing within 10 mile of the islands during the summer months.


Until next time, Tight Lines!

Capt. Bob Soderholm
Sole Searcher Charters
Carrabelle, FL
(850) 899-0455
Member, National Association of Charterboat Operators

[Will_Fish_4_Food]

Thanks for the report! Headed out that way tomorrow.....hopefully.

[rx fisher]

Wednesday morning ran into the same storms, waterspout in the bay and
on the gulf. Very scary..