Report for Destin, Florida - Nearshore

Capt. Larry Pentel
March 21, 2006
Destin - Saltwater Fishing Report

It must be spring! The roads are packed with cars full of kids and there are bikinis on the beach!!

The fish have noticed and are starting the yearly move inshore- it must be that first bikini in the water that makes 'em start in---. I ran trips 3 days last weekend and we did good. I was supposed to run the past 2 days also but along with spring we get these fronts moving thru that make it a little to rough to be fun.

I bottom fished my clients and have not looked for cobias yet. There have been a few caught but the run has not really started. Amidst all the rumors I only know of half a dozen actual confirmed fish. This with several dozens boat looking multiple days--. I'm going to wait till this front is over and it warms back up ( 75 now but supposed to be 40 tomorow nite!) before I run a real cobia trip.

The triggers have moved back in to the inshore reefs along with the Red snappers. We caught a pile of snappers with 3 over 10# on one of my half days this week. All have to be released untill April 15th but they still fight good and photograph well! My 3 anglers had 19 triggers and 2 Black groupers in the box when we hit the beach so nobody went hungry without the snappers.

Still quite a few Groupers around. Ran a half with a couple of "regulars and 2 buddies and came in with 8 grouper (4 red, 4 black). 'Course the regulars landed 7 of the 8 and the buddies learned a bunch about short water grouper fishin'. Just 'cause you get the bite doesn't mean you can land the fish! On my last trip we were mainly after triggers ( came in with our 40 fish limit) but also had a couple grouper. The biggest was a red about 15# that ate a little tiny piece of squid on a trigger rig! The angler had quite the battle with the big boy AND a trigger on the little penn 3/0. Another great (true) fish story to tell his buds-

Lots of big schools of small minnows on the sand bar and big schools of cigs out in 75 to 90 feet. No sign of spanish or pompano yet though. My last trip the beach water was 65.5 degrees. After this blow is over and the sun comes back out it should hit the magic 67 degrees pretty quick. I believe this is going to be one of those years when the flood gates just open up and all of a sudden one day everything is here and hungry.

I plan to be cobia fishing that day--- come join me.

Capt Larry Pentel

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