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Report for Destin, Florida - Nearshore
Capt. Larry Pentel
September 6, 2004
Destin - Saltwater Fishing Report
Since I'm sitting down to write a report you know it's blowin'. Just a little harder than usual as we wait to see where Hurricane Francis makes her 2nd landfall.
Until this AM the weather here has been beautiful (no matter what the TV folks say). Yesterdays trip cancelled because of TV weather and missed a great day. Saturday we went out in clean green water, a bright sky and a good breeze out of the North. Slick calm on the beach, a little bumpy offshore. Always looking to keep it fun, we fished the beach.
And a good call it was. My 2 anglers ( who have probably put 2 dozen trips in with me and know the drill) put 7 Red snappers, a dozen triggers and 2 nice Black snappers in the box the first 2 hours. We threw a bunch of "just" short groupers back so I went just a lttle further offshore and hit a grouper rock to see if the bigger ones would bite too. They did, in a great rallly my folks had thier limit (10) of groupers in the box and had released several more shorts. Running back to the beach I was taking it easy on speed and glanced up at the botton machine to see a piece of bottom I hadn't fished. We rounded up and still had a 1/2 hour or so, so my folks ran down baits. Immediate bites, a big red snapper that we lost and a grouper. Oh well, I told 'em they could keep my grouper limit as well as thiers. In fairly short order we had 4 more in the box for a total of 15. Pretty darn good for a 4 hour- usually get those kind of bites right after a storm rather than just before.
Friday I had some "used to be" regulars. They had moved away and were back for a vacation. We got a limit (20) of Red snappers for 'em along with a few trigs and a grouper. The biggest Snapper was about 12# and we had it's twin on only to lose it to a BIG shark right under the boat- needless to say it shut down the bite at that spot.
By and large the Snapper bite has been so-so. We've been coming in with great boxes of fish on the 1/2 days but most haven't had a limit of red snaps. There have been quite a few kings and Triigers, some Black snaps and a lot of groupers around to fill the box tho. As a lot of my "new" anglers learn , having groupers around and biting and being able to put 'em in the box are not the same thing.
No telling what this storm will do to the fish. The wind has steady been out of the North and the surf on the beach is flat. If we get a big sea it may move some fish around ( the best fishing can be a week after a storm). All the hardcore grouper fishermen look for a Tropical Storm to blow across the middle grounds and hit this area. The groupers ride the storm surge and stop on the bigggest spots right off the beach. Unfamilar with the area and hungry from the trip they bite darn near anything and don't know where the holes are to hide in so we lose very few to the bottom. If this storm goes in over at Carrabelle tho I think it's just going to make it too sloppy to fish for 4 days-
Capt. Larry Pentel
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