I fished Tuesday, 26 miles west of Ft. Myers Beach, in 50 feet. We caught mangrove snapper, triggerfish, lesser amber jack (banded rudder fish), and gag shots to 20 inches. There were lots of goliaths around, and they ate much of everything else we hooked.
Wednesday, we began about 17 miles west of New Pass, but we kept moving further out to escape the porpoise. We ended up about 28 miles west of New Pass, having caught fish at several spots between 17 and 28 miles. We used live shrimp to catch about 35 keeper-sized lane snapper. We released twenty of those, along with some keeper-sized Spanish mackerel. We used pinfish to catch a bunch of red and gag grouper, but none of those were quite keeper size.
I fished Friday, about 26 miles northwest of New Pass. The wind picked up, and it got pretty sloppy out there, but we had an exciting day of fishing. We hooked two goliath grouper, one about 70 pounds, and the other about 200 pounds. We photographed and released those. Then, we caught a 12 pound permit, the first one I have encountered this season (photo attached). We also caught a 28 inch king mackerel, along with keeper mangrove snapper. We released other bottomfish and grouper shorts, and headed in, in rough seas, about 3:00.
I had a short trip offshore Saturday, prior my anglers’ afternoon tee-time. We fished a catch & release trip west of New Pass, in about 30 feet, where we caught Spanish mackerel to 24 inches, mangrove snapper, triggerfish, and grouper shorts, on live shrimp.
