Great week of fishing-gags, snapper: Bonita Beach, SW FL

[fishbuster]

After a rough and windy weekend, I got back offshore on Monday, 1/9, and fished in 42 feet, out of New Pass. Cut-bait didn’t get us any bites, so we switched to live shrimp, caught keeper mangrove snapper, and released gag grouper shorts. I fished with the same group of anglers again on Tuesday, this time at some wrecks and ledges about 35 feet out of New Pass. We limited out on mangrove snapper to 14 inches, and caught lane snapper also to 14 inches. We released gag grouper up to just a half-inch short of legal size, and also released a 3 1/2 foot black tip shark.

Fishing Wednesday with live shrimp in 42 feet out of New Pass, we caught a keeper gag grouper at 23 inches, and ten nice mangrove snapper, all 14-15 inches, along with a few good-sized triggerfish. Seas were calm, which was a nice change, but the tide and bite were a bit slow first thing in the morning.

Thursday, I fished in calm seas, in 45 feet out of New Pass. We limited out on mangrove snapper by 11:30 AM, with twenty nice ones to 18 inches, and we released lots of smaller ones. We also caught a 23 inch gag grouper, and we got a few nice triggerfish, all on live shrimp.

Friday the thirteenth was pretty lucky for us. We fished with live shrimp on a ledge about 26 miles out of New Pass, and caught twenty-six nice mangrove snapper to 17 inches, along with two keeper gag grouper, a few nice sheepshead, triggerfish and porgies. We boated 163 fish in all, releasing all but the gags and our limit of snapper.

Saturday brought a windy cold front, with rough seas persisting throughout the weekend. But, we couldn’t complain, after a full week of good fishing.