Sheepshead mania along the Panhandle
Capt. John Rivers
March 22, 2008
Pensacola - Saltwater Fishing Report
When the wind blows, the fishing will rock. With gusts well over 35 mph and some reaching 40mph, I had to keep the boat on the trailer for the past few days until Mother Nature decided it was time to let us go fishing again. Today was the first day of spring, and my charter for the day and I decided we would ring in spring right. It was a chilly morning, around 40 degrees to start, so we headed out around lunchtime. I was ready to do some fishing and so were Terry and his new wife, Mimi, who were visiting from Texas.
They had come to Pensacola for their honeymoon and wanted to do a little fishing, but the wind had kept them off the water and out of the surf for the past three days. What's a honeymooner to do? Red flags had been blowing all week, which mean to stay out of the water because of rough surf.
Well, enough of the weather report, let's talk about what we hooked up. I made my way to my honey hole where I've been hooking up some big sheepshead and some keeper redfish. The bite wasn't exactly on fire, but we managed to boat some quality fish, and the treat for the day was a big 24" grouper. The cool thing about this catch was we caught it on light tackle, in fact on the same rods I use for sheepshead fishing. The big Gag hit a live shrimp. Well, he actually hammered it! I had a third rod out, and put it in the holder hoping maybe a redfish might pick it up and hook himself. Terry yelled out, "there's a fish on that rod!" and sure enough there was, but I had no idea that it was going to be a 24" Gag. I handed Terry the rod and he began the fight, and on this light tackle outfit it was not easy, but I had 20lb Berkley braid and 30lb Berkley mono as a leader and this was the only reason we landed this fish. A few minutes into the fight, the fish rocked himself and Terry said," I'm hung up," so I took the rod and gave the fish some slack to see if he would swim out of his hole. Sure enough, after about 30 seconds he swam out and I turned his head and pulled him out of the rocks. I then handed the rod back to Terry to let him complete the battle, but it was no easy task landing this fish, it still took a few minutes to get this beast to the boat. When we all saw what kind fish it was we were all smiles; a keeper gag on light tackle, what a treat.
The wind is supposed to calm down during the next couple of days and the fishing is only going to get better. Hey, it's spring! Do some spring-cleaning, fish cleaning, that is!
If you're going to be near Pensacola, give me a ring and let's go fishing.
Tight lines,
Capt. John Rivers
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