Report for Destin, Florida - Nearshore

Capt. Larry Pentel
August 9, 2000
Destin - Saltwater Fishing Report

OFFSHORE

The Gulf never ceaces to amaze me with the amount of fish it produces. The king bite is eractic but there are still lots of big fish out there if your willing to spend the time for 'em. I had a trip last week where we fished for kings for half an hour without a bite on my favorite "big fish" rock. I fell of shore a little and my folks caught a bunch of vermillion snapper some red snapper and a few triggers for a nice box of fish. I swung by the same rock on the way in and put out three baits for one lap around the rock. As I was putting out the last bait my thumb about got burned off as a fish grabbed the hardtail I was dropping back. I threw the reel in gear and set the hook to nothing. Not 20 seconds latter one of the other two rods doubled over and started singing my favorite tune. We were 20 minutes late getting in but we had a 35# king to top off our box. I'm sure that fish (along with lots of buddies) was there when we fished the rock 3 hours earlier, they just weren't ready to eat. If I ever get to figure out these mackeral I'll probably quit fishing and just become a high paid consultant. Good thing it will never happen. Ran another king trip a couple of days before with a local bunch. We had our limit in 2 hours of fishing along with 6 big spanish. The smallest king was 7# and the biggest 27#. We went in and another boat fell in behind us. I talked to him latter and he said they caught two real quick and the bite just stopped. Like I said, "if I ever figure these out....".

There are still lots of snappers around but the size has dropped a lot in the short (within 100') water. Todays trip had us with a limit of snappers but we probably threw back 3 times as many as we kept. There seems to have been a movement of smaller groupers in the past two weeks though. We had 1 keeper and 3 within half an inch today and it's been like that for most of my trips. The triggers are starting to show up a little better. I can't wait for 'em to get hot this fall. Every year i take a day or two with some buddies in the fall and make a "freezer trip". I always wait till the triggers are hot and we can get a box full. Probably about another month to six weeks. Nothing like a fried trigger sandwich on a rough day in December.

INSHORE

The trout bite remains slow in all the bays but there have been some nice fish caught at night under lights. I took two days off this week and went and did some inshore sight fishing by myself. No redfish or trout but TRIPLETAIL. I took the Deadfish over to Indian pass on Sunday afternoon and climbed up in the tower and spent a great afternoon spotting 10 fine tails and releasing two. Monday I only found 8 (caught 4 on artificials) but i called two otherguides in to where I was finding 'em and they caught a few for their trips. It is really great fishing with all the excitement of cobia fishing, just with lighter line and smaller fish. The biggest fish I saw was probably 15-18# but he turned down a live pin fish a dragged in front of 'em after he ignored my top water. Another guide ( also on a day off) caught a 13# fish on Sat.. If you are looking for something new and different try it. I love to sight fish.

Remember-- lots of sunscreen and make sure it says 50

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