Report for Destin, Florida - Nearshore

Capt. Larry Pentel
March 22, 2001
Destin - Saltwater Fishing Report

What a spring! The azealas and wisteria are in full bloom while it snows in central Alabama !

The weather has not been very conducive to fishing the past 10 days.I've had to cancel more trips than I've been able to run. When the wind finally slows down enough to go the Groupers have been more than willing to cooperate. I ran a trip this morning that was supposed to be a cobia expidition but with a 15 knot wind blowing straight down the beach out of the west I told my folks we propbably should go bottom fishing first to make sure we had some show.I slid out about 4 miles to 75' of water and was busy giving the crash course in grouper diggin'almost immediately. In 2 hours my 3 anglers had 6 fine grouper in the boat with the biggest at about 17 lbs. We also sore lipped quite a few while my folks figured out how it was done. We ran back into the beach and looked for cobias for a little over an hour with nothing but a couple of turtles to draw our interest. The wind was now SW at about 20 kts and we decided that the truck looked like the place to be. I like catching groupers but I'll sure be glad when the weather turns right for flathead fishin'. My trip saturday is for cobias. It's repeat folks who've done the snapper, king mackeral and grouper thing with me on several trips last year. Hopefully the sun will shine and the wind will be moderate out of the East and the fish will show. Every other time these folks have gone they have done excellant with the target species.

I don't have much of a report for the bay except that the water behind my house looks like iced tea. All this rain we've had ( 3 inches day before yesterday)has the rivers flooding and the bay full of fresh water. I don't know where the trout are but I'm sure they are no longer up the Intercoastal or at the river mouths. I've got 3 bay trips next week so I'll have to do some prospecting. This is usually the time of year to start fishin' the ledges off the flats for the big specks. I've always caught more big fish the end of March and April that the rest of the year combined.

If the suns out and the winds not blowing go fishing!- you can work the next day when it's howling at 30 kts.

Capt. Larry Pentel

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