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Report for Destin, Florida - Nearshore
Capt. Larry Pentel
September 4, 2002
Destin - Saltwater Fishing Report
The Snappers sure have stuck around inshore this year. I've run everyday the past 6 days and even on the 4 hr. trips we've had a limit of Red Regulars. Some days my folks had plenty of other species to go along with and a couple of days I was proud to have just snaps.
Yesterdays trip had 3 folks who had never been before. The fellow that booked said I'd been recomended and they just wanted to make sure they caught enough for dinner, could I promise that ? I gave my usual speech about promising bites but the "catching" was up to them. After about an hour of nice calm water teaching I had 'em trained up on how to snapper fish and they started putting a few in the box. All of sudden the dad in the crew gets the big bite (on light tackle of course). He gave it his best but the fish found the wreck we were fishing and got in it. I asked if I could try to talk 'em out and lucked out into pulling the fish out of the hole. Handed the rod back and we're fightin' again. Finally the fish starts to tire and comes up under the boat. I'm ready with the gaff when the hook pulls 5 ft from the boat.My angler is devastated, we all saw what looked like a 20# snapper just 6 inches from the gaff swimm straight down AWAY from the box. All of a sudden his son yells and I spin around to see the fish pop up on top, to bloated to be able to make it back down 80ft. I shoved her in gear and spun the boat around while I grabbed the gaff again and reached out to touch someone. A score!! In the boat to much high fiving and yelling. By now we are way off the spot so I throw out a spinning rod to ease back up. Never made it 10 ft. and we got a king. Put it back out and Bang! on again. Now the son and son in law have got these 2 kings and are almost up to dad in size of fish. Dads next on the fly pole and it doen't take long. Only his fish decides to play energizer bunny and just keeps going and going. After 15 minutes I stuck a king at 26#. Dad's wore out but he's got the "youngsters" beat and knows it. We moved on to some other spots to finish out our snapper limit with dad rubbin' it in every time one the boys missed a fish.
I'll say it again. I sure take a lot of lucky people fishin'.
Sunday was kinda on the flip side. It was rough, REAL rough. I did a couple of "courtesy" stops right on the beach where it was sheltered and we got 3 lane snappers and a nice black. My folks all said they felt fine ( the "leader" is a regular) and "lets go get 'em!. It took me a half hout to go 4 miles to where I knew there was a pile of red ones. My folks would all go down, get a good bite and we'd be off the spot. Didn't matter if they got the fish or not I'd have to round back up to the wreck again 'cause we were getting blown off so fast. After an hour we had 18 red snappers in box and were all soaked. I suggested we head back in to some calmer water. I had a spot I knew had just a few snaps on it but they were good 'uns up in close. All right, much calmer, get everybody together and Wham! there's the big one. This fish swam 60 ft alomg the bottom to get in the wreck with me trying to drive off in the opposite direction. I don't know how big a snapper it is but I know where he lives. We got 2 nice ones about 6-8# a piece to finish out our limit. Odd for me to come in with nothing but snaps but like I said. Under those conditions I was proud to have 'em. 20 red , 3 lanes and a black- still not to shabby for a 4 hr.---
Capt. Larry Pentel
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