BigBendFishing.Net

I spent last week at my wife's annual family reunion on Cape San Blas. Heres a brief report on the fishing and the weather. The first of the week, we watched from the balcony of our rental house as a storm front dropped four of these bad boys all at the same time. Two of them combined to form the larger one on the left of this photo:


Once the weather calmed down we broke out the kayaks and began to hit the bay each day for a trout run. We started out the first two days launching at the kayak / canoe launch at the South end of the bay. We fished the tides and struggled to get our limits on those days. We did catch some flounder around the long dock at the fire tower and some decent sized trout. There was a LOT of live bait around the Pig Island area and in Eagle Harbor.

As the week went on, we figured out that our best bite was happening early in the day, so we began to get up about 5:00 am and hit the water by 6:00 am. We also lauched over near Presnell's for the last few trips of the week. Once we moved our trips to earlier in the day, we had no trouble getting our limits by 10 or 11:00 am., regardless of which side of the bay we fished.

Live bait and artificials seemed to work equally well, although the pinfish and small trout would drive you nuts if you fished the Gulp baits. Here's some pics of one of our catches:




The largest of the fish we caught were a little over 24", but we caught many over 20". I should mention also that the bay was loaded with sharks. If you go in a kayak, do not keep your fish on a stringer. We had to get collapsable coolers to keep from getting our fish stolen, and some of the sharks were 6' or better. We also got hit by sharks on the live bait enough that we began to instantly break them off rather than loose $20 worth of Power Pro each time.

We didn't see a lot of scallops, but we didn't look for them either.

Good Fishin -
Steve Stinson

Them sharks make it fun don't they. Glad you learned the trout keeping lesson the easy way. Some learn it by a shark doing the death roll with a mouth full of trout tied to their kayaks.

J Suber -
That's the same way we caught on, and the sharks kept getting bigger as the week wore on.

You and I were fishing the same area this past Winter. I am the black 2005 Nissan Frontier 4X4 you kept seeing, and my buddy has a silver Dodge with a ladder rack on one side of the bed. I kept passing your truck with the personalized tag, but never hit the shore at the same time you did. We stayed on the reds heavy until the weather warmed up.

Good Fishin' - Steve Stinson

We are getting wet at Alligator Point this Sunday. Come on out and join us. We are paddling out from the put in off HWY 98

JSuber -

I am cranking up the bayboat on Saturday to be a Captain in Hands Helping Anglers. Sunday is normally church for me, but I might be able to make it if your going in the afternoon.

What time are you all headed out?

Thanks - Steve Stinson

First Light