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Report for Destin, Florida - Nearshore
Capt. Larry Pentel
June 25, 2001
Destin - Saltwater Fishing Report
What a week ! The fishing in the gulf just seems to be getting better each day. The snappers have been copoperating nicely with lots of limit catches and some good size ones thrown in to boot . The Kings are are doing their usual bit with ferocious bites one day and missing persons reports the next. We are still getting a few grouper bites every day even on 4 hour trips . Thats not to say we're bringing 'em in all the time. The easy ones have been caught and the big smart ones will win in a fair fight. The trick of course is not to fish fair. I took a couple of locals out last week with it being a birthday trip for a young lady on board., She showed her boyfriend up by putting 2 fine grouper in the boat along with 4snapper before he got to catch a fish. He answered by hooking a sea monster. After a fight that lasted almost an hour I eased a bull shark up to the boat that went about 300#. I lifted his head out of the water, she took a couple of great pictures and we let him go to fight another day. Even after spending 25% of our 4 hrs. on the shark we still came in with 8 red snappers , 3 groupers ,some fine vermillions and a few triggers One of the best birthaday parties I've been to in ages.
Today was one of those days you wish you could record to play over and over again. Repeat customers from last year, Grandad, son, son in law and 2 grandkids ( yes I'll take 5 if it's kids). The Gulf was like a pond all morning, the humidity was way down, the baits bit for me real good before I picked up my folks and the fishing was FANTASTIC. The first stop we started for snappers and put 4 decent ones in the boat pretty quick. Then the big ones went to chewing. We lost 2 grouper and probably 6 big snappers in 20 minutes. I was tying hooks on as fast as I could juist stopping long enough to gaff the the 4 big snappers that made it to the boat. On to the next spot and the kings start to bite. We put three in the boat with 1 at 25# real quick. Then the little sharks took over and we had to move. The next spot had a few more snapper added to the box along with a 5# flounder. And then it got real fun. We found a rock with a huge school of black snapper that came up to swim around the boat. My folks put 4 in the box to 10# and missed a bunch when the kings rallyed again! At the end of our 4 hours my 182 quart cooler wouldn't shut! We had 11 redsnapper to about 12#, 4 Black snappers, 1 shark at 15# , the big flounder and 9 Kings with the biggest one tippimg the scale at 36#. I can't wait to see what bites tomorrow!!!
On the Inshore scene the big news is TARPON. The run has started down at Indian Pass. I didn't book any tarpon trips untill July but they have shown up. I talked to capt. Randall Jones this weekend and he ran two trips last week and boated 3 tarpon. The conversation was exciting and I forgot to ask how many they jumped off. I'm going over for 3 weeks July 5th and still have 3 open days. Going back the 2nd week in August for 2 weeks and have about half that open. I can't wait to start "launching" the big silver critters
So many fish, so little time----
Capt. Larry Pentel.
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