Report for Destin, Florida - Nearshore

Capt. Larry Pentel
August 20, 2003
Destin - Saltwater Fishing Report

I got back to Walton Co. yesterday evening after being at the "Pass" for 7 weeks. I had forgotten what traffic (and traffic lights) were. A trip to Destin today brought me rioght back to "reality".

This years Tarpon season never really came together. We caught fish (some BIG) but not in the numbers of previous years. Tarpon here seem to do best when it's hot, dry and calm. Those adjectives seemed to be lacking from the weather forcasters vocabulary all season. I'm sure if the weather pattern returned to sub-normal there would be a good showing of fish before they went South but I'm back here.

My last couple of days at Indian Pass were great tho- Sat. we saw LOTS of tarpon in the AM just couldn't get any to play. Had 2 "mystery" bites that slammed the rod and pulled drag but no hook up. Sun. AM I ran a half day shark trip. After just over 2 hours of catching( and releasing) toothy critters from 30 to 230# my folks said they were beat and we could go in. The bite was as good as it gets - I had trouble throwing the reels into gear after flippin' out a bait several times 'cause there was a creature on it too fast . Monday Capt. Pat Atkins from Destin (of "Strike Zone" fame )came over and we went Triple tail fishin'. On our AM run we found 3, Pat made great casts and we captured 'em all ( biggest 'bout 10# on 8# test). We came in for lunch fired up and bragin'. Capt. Randall Jones called it tho when he told us we were fixin to have a "market correction". We saw 4 after a long lunch and flailed on all of em. At least I've got some ammunition to put out on the radio against Pat when I get back to fishin' here-.

Tackle to fix, house chores to do but I'm back to bottom bouncin' on Sat. I'm sure after a 7 week break my "pet" wrecks need a little thinning out.

Capt. Larry Pentel

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