Report for Destin, Florida - Nearshore

Capt. Larry Pentel
February 24, 2001
Destin - Saltwater Fishing Report

Back On The Water

I'm Back! I apologize for not keep my reports up to date. We had a serious illness in the family that kept me off the water for 5 weeks. This was a 30 year record and hopefully will not be repeated for at least as long.

If your going to miss a month of fishing the end of January and begining of February is usually the slowest time of the year and the least missed part of the season. I started running trips again this past week with no idea on what was biting where and just followed the historical patterns. Either after 40 years of fishing I've finaly figured things out or I'm just extremely lucky ( I'd rather be lucky than good ANY day). My anglers had some great trips this past week with all my fishing being done at the east end of Choctawhatchee Bay. I ran three trips that were all catch and release, good for me since trout are closed in Feb.. We fished the deep holes around the river mouths and Intercoastal waterway with most of the fish being in about 10 feet of water and feeding on the bottom. Tuesday I ran a couple down on vacation from Ohio who just wanted a relaxing day on the water. After a little intstruction they decided they liked catching fish too, with a tally of about 20 trout and 2 redfish. The high point of the day was when the lady angler caught a striper on 8# trout tackle. She did great and smiled big for a picture before we let the bass swim off. The trout really turned on for a pair of anglers I took Wednesday with us loosing count somewhere around 70 . No big fish that day but we found two different schools that wore my guys out. They also caught 2 redfish that got 'em by surprise when they pulled a little more than the trout. Thursday had a front come through that really slowed the bite down. The fish were still in the same spots but reluctant to turn on. The good thing about fishing right after a front is the bigger fish will usually bite. We proved it true again with our lunker trout pushing the scale over 5# and the biggest redfish being on the upper end of the "keeper scale". All total we released 12 trout, 4 redfish and missed a LOT of soft bites.

On the beach scene I heard a lot of pompano and whiting stories from about a week ago with the best report from Scott Whitehurst who caught 11 pompano one afternoon. The bite seems to have stalled out the past few days with lots off folks going biteless. We have the start of whatseems to be a major Southeaster blowing this AM so the bite may start again in earnest next week.

On the offshore front I'm still in the dark. I was supposed to run a grouper trip today but the waether has postponed us. There is a small craft advisory out and the wind is predicted to be 25 knots by lunch. While we need these big weatherpushed to bring everything inshore this time of year I was real disapointed to not be able to go today. The few reports i've heard say the groupers are still pretty thick and the snappers are starting to come back in a little closer. One of the grayton boats got out about 10 days ago and said they broke off 10 groupers in 60 to 80 ft on 80# test in addition to the 5 they landed. Maybe I'll get a shot after this front.

**ONLY ONE MONTH TILL COBIA SEASON**

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