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Report for Destin, Florida - Nearshore
Capt. Larry Pentel
November 15, 2001
Destin - Saltwater Fishing Report
The wind finally started blowing out of the NE Tuesday after a week of some of the best weather November has ever offered. I ran several gulf trips last week where the Gulf looked like a millpond. One female angler was even commenting on how shw would love to be skiing on such slick water if only her arms weren't so sore from catching fish.
The fishing has remained quite good even without being able to keep red snapper. I had a couple of trips last week where we limited out on amberines along with good messes of triggers. There are always a few grouper, black snapper, lane snapper or kings to round out the box. On Sunday I had a Dad and three young boys on a 4 hour. Dad wanted fish that fought hard on light tackle so we went and caught a few amberines to stretch thier strings. Everyone was having a great time hooting and hollering when I saw a big king swim right under the boat. I quickly got a rod out and dad got a good king 'bout 15#. Not the one I saw tho. I asked them to bear with me and we would get 'em a trophy. Sure enough, the oldest boy (14) had a fantastic battle with a king that went 35# on the scales. We went on to catch a limit of kings along with a handful of trigs, 2 lane snapper,1 keeper grouper and a bunch of 'marines. The youngest boy got a red snapper (released) about 12# on 30# tackle. He smiled as big for his picture as his brother did with the big King. I love taking kids that get into it.
On the inshore scene the redfish are thick at Indian Pass. I took a couple sight fishing for them on tuesday morning. Of course the wind was blowing about 25 knots out of the NE straight down the bay so polling the boat was interesting to say the least. The first flat I tried had fish all over it though and within 20 minutes the gentleman had a 26 inch fish in the boat. His wife hooked up one that we fought for 15 minutes immediately after but he was a little to big to keep at about 30 in.. We went on to fish another flat and saw lots of fish but the wind made casting to targets dificult. We put one more red, a nice trout and a flounder in the boat before we called it too rough to fish.
On Monday I didn't have a trip so I took a "bus drivers holiday" and took Capt. Pat Atkins from the "Strike Zone" flounder fishin' with me., We had a great time and caught 29 flounder on jigs on some inshore wrecks. We also had 25 triggers and 4 kings that hit our fly pole. Pat refused to grab the fly pole whenever it went off, he was having too good a time staying just a head of me on flounder. We all ( guides) spend so much time on the water but get to spend so little time fishing ourselves that it is always a big deal to take a day for yourself. Luckily our wives understand and actually encourage it sometimes. Of course having a freezer full of trigger and flat fish fillets helps too.
Now if you'll excuse me I think the mackeral are just about ready to be dinner-
Capt. Larry Pentel
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