Ft. Myers - Offshore

Capt. Rick Featherstone
August 23, 2005
Fort Myers - Saltwater Fishing Report

Grouper Grab

Greetings,

This weeks report is about one trip. I was invited to fish the Grouper Grab aboard Chris Thomas’s Holdemhook. It’s a Fountain 34. Its triple engines let us run at sixty miles per hour. What a machine! We fished sixty to ninety miles offshore under beautiful weather conditions.

At the shotgun start of fifty plus boats no other vessel could keep up with us. Really cool! Then it was just hang on as we flew offshore. Our catch? Well I will say it was non-stop. American Red Snappers, eleven I think. Red grouper, five, Gag grouper, seven. Oh, and a twenty pound plus Blackfin Tuna, a tilefish and some Vermillion Snapper.

Our baits were large pinfish, jacks, ladyfish, sardines, and squid. We also used some live stuff caught on site.

But as usual it was the ones that got away that bring the most memories. We fought three different big fish hooked up on Penn International VSW reels loaded with a top shot of one hundred and thirty pound spectra braid line. Drags were stoned. The reels were on Penn Tuna Stick fifty to one hundred pound rods. Even with that rig, we were over matched a few times!

It was a great time and a great tournament.

Keep it tight,

Capt. Rick Featherstone

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