Report for Destin, Florida - Nearshore

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

And now for the good part of tropical storms- GROUPERS !!

Hurricane Lili may have have cost me some fishing days but the quality of the bite since she left has been phenomenal. A lot of the Red Snappers we had before seem to have been moved out but there are more groupers inshore than I have seen in years.

Saturday I had a group of three repeats who didn't think we would be fishing. I told 'em to stand by and I'd call 8 AM Sat. to discuss the weather. Sat dawned beautiful with the Gulf showing no sign of the huge seas from the previous days. We went out at 9 on a 4 hour trip and found the grouper biting everywhere. Lots of shorts but we still finished the trip with a limit of red snapper (16) 2 red grouper and 4 Black grouper to 15#. Now I know that as good as this is it's probably just going to get better as the water clears up.

Sure enough Sundays trip had 3 brothers and an in law from St Louis on a 6 hour who asked me on the way out if we could grouper fish some. Just what I wanted to hear. At the end of the trip we had 11 black grouper to 17#, 2 red grouper and 20 red snapper to 8#. They were extremely pleased with the catch. Even the the brother in law who was an (admited) golfer allowed that this was the best part of any vacation. They had probably caught another 30 grouper that were just short. They were already trying to line up trips for next year and asking if I scheduled hurricanes.

Modays trip was the one to brag on. Local folks who know the drill and we filled the cooler in 5 hours trailer to trailer. 20 Black grouper 11 Red Snapper and 2 Kings. Legally we could have caught a few more snaps but the box wouldn't have shut and we were out of ice. No point in being too greedy---

Today I ran a couple from Missouri whos only Gulf experience had been head boats. The wife was worried she couldn't catch a fish and the husband worried about being seasick. The Gulf was slick calm and the fish still hungry. At the end of our 4 hrs. we had tallied 6 Black groupers to 18# (dad), 11 red sanppers to 7# (mom) and a pair of mackeral- joint effort. Dad said he never had time to feel quesy or anything other than winding ( he probably caught 2 dozen groups total) and Mom said she would'nt have missed it for anything but she was ready to go in and take a nap cause of all the fish she'd caught !

No telling how long the bite will stay this hot but I plan on trying to find out as hard as I can-----

Capt. Larry Pentel

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