Report for Destin, Florida - Nearshore

Capt. Larry Pentel
August 8, 2002
Destin - Saltwater Fishing Report

I know it's been 6 weeks since I've written a report but I've been at Indian Pass the whole time running Tarpon and Shark trips. While it's a fantastic place to fish it's hard to buy a loaf of bread for 20 miles let alone find a computer!!

The Tarpon are there but not in the numbers everyone is used to from the past 20 years. Last year we jumped at least 1 fish over 100# everyday in July. This year I went quite few days without jumping a fish at all. We see dozens of fish every day but not in 100's like we're used to. Still LOTS of memorable days. The shark fishing was so hot the first 2 weeks of July it was scary. One of my regular tarpon customers had me booked for 2 days and talked the folks on the 3rd day into letting him come with in the morning to do it again !!

Now I'm just grabbin' the leader and breaking these fish off at the boat (150# mono)but that day my 3 anglers had about 2,000# of sharks to the boat in under 2 hours. The average size was around 70# with quite a few over 100#. These aren't your hug the bottom, pull like a box of rocks sharks either. Mainly Black tips and Spinners which like to JUMP! Pretty impressive to see a 125# Spinner on his 4th jump after dumping 100 yards of 40# in under 10 seconds! One of my clients said it was a cross between "Fear Factor" and "Ripleys believe it or not". Pretty interesting trying to drive the boat and keep the lines clear when you've got 3 of 'em on too.

I did notice that no one reached over the side to rinse off thier hands. And that when folks moved around the boat one hand was always holding a rail or the tower. You did NOT want to be in the water! Several times I took folks out who weren't ready ( nobody believes you till they see it). My stock advice was " Keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times!"

Lots more stories including 2 world record Tarpon we had on--- I'll save those for next week. It's still summer, log off this machine, put some new line on your reel and go fishin' !!

Capt. Larry Pentel

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