Fishin' Hard, Runnin' Late
Capt. Larry Pentel
October 15, 2009
Destin - Saltwater Fishing Report
Okay- I know it's been almost 2 weeks since I wrote a report. I have been fishing hard, enjoying this wonderful warm (and calm!) October weather. The fish have been enjoying the warmth too. There are huge schools of small cigs and herrings up on the sandbar and lots of pelagics up in the shallow water chasing them. We have jumped Sailfish on 4 days this past week , putting a really big (80#+) fish in the air today. Plenty of kings up on the bar although most are of the "regular" size there are a few bigger ones thrown in just to surprise you every now and then. Another great surprise this week has been the Mahi- there have been a lot of 10 to 20# fish right up on the beach in 20' of water , chasing the small baits around. I have not been able to spend a full 4 hours up in close trolling- I have run out for at least half a trip every day to take my anglers bottom fishing. One of the other Grayton capts. (Jody Wesley) was able to spend his whole day riding the tower and looking up on the bar a couple days ago and found a BIG school of Mahis-- I think they ended up landing 16 fish in the 8 to 15# range as well as their limit of kings.
The best surprise for me and some of my anglers though was a big galvanized fish that hit a slow trolled minnow the other day. check out the pic below-
That's a 50# wahoo in the middle of the rack- the best part is the 11 year old caught it !
Plenty of triggers have moved in as well as some amberines . The hard part with the trigs is finding 'em over 16' long (14" to the fork)
Here's a good dozen fine trigs along with an assortment of other critters.
Plenty of great catches-- here's a sample of a few more-
A limit of Kings and some bottom dwellers-
One of those beach mahis and some beach regulars
Gals always catch fish!
We have the first "real" cold front of the year coming thru starting tomorrow-- probably be too rough to fish. The blue Norther that is supposed to blow for a few days behind it will keep just about everybody up in close to the beach. I think it'll give me a good excuse to stay on the bar and troll all trip Saturday and Sunday!
The water temp on the beach is still 82 degrees- I'm sure it'll start to drop pretty quick after this front moves through. While that may push the sails and mahis back offshore it should help turn on the Kings, Triggers, Amberines and ...... lets not forget-- Flounders! I would think that a quick few degree drop in water temp will have those tasty flatfish up on the beach!
capt Larry Pentel
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