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Report for Destin, Florida - Nearshore
Capt. Larry Pentel
May 14, 2006
Destin - Saltwater Fishing Report
Warm days, clear water and lots of fish- It must be summer!
While the cobia season may have been a let down everything else is coming in right on schedule. The snappers have started moving further inshore and the kings are showing up thick as fleas one day and gone the next ( as they are supposed to!)There has been a lot of grass in close and you never know just what is going to be on the board when you come in.
Ran 4 folks I had never fished before on a referral last week. They got on the boat with a bunch of fly tackle so I questioned thier intent on booking a bottom trip (?) They said no, they wanted snapper and grouper but if an oppoutunity presented itself they wanted to fly fish- fair enough but asking a lot on a 4 hour! As I always say- I'd rather be lucky than good. These folks knew how to fish and we had a great box with 11 red snapps, a black, a couple lanes, 6 (count 'em, six)nice groupers, 3 kings and bunch of BB,s and trigs. With about 20 minutes left to fish I'm runnin' to another snapper spot and we hit a big weed line. A quick conference and the deciion is made to troll the line and look for mahi. We worked the line dragging live baits with no action for 15 minutes till we reached the end on a big grass island. I saw a nice tripletail at the very edge from the tower and had a flyrodder on the bow throw at him. The tail struck but missed and as I'm looking for any other targets before we run in I glanced down and saw the electric green glow of a mass of dolphins coming up from down deep. I start yelling at the flyrodders to get ready and grabbed a spinning rod to try to get 'em fired up. The short version is we came in 45 minutes late with a dozen mahi in the box. My crew caught 16 and we released the 4 smaller ones keeping the better grade. They took turns hooking up rather than have 2 on on the fly at the same time wich made for a lot of yelling by the 'observers" for the current angler to horse 'em. Even so we only broke off 1 fish ! I love it when a plan comes together!
Plenty of snappers on just about everything from rocks to wrecks that we thought dissapeared years ago. The pompano run was in full swing with the "beach boys" getting plenty of action untill this past week . The dreaded June Grass has shown up. It's not everywhere so you can drive up or down the beach and find a clear spot ( for a while) to fish but don't even try if you see any in your favorite hole. LOTS of sharks around too, always eager to relieve you of that big snapper if you take to long playng 'em to the boat. I am a firm beliver in rules and limits but I think they need to lighten up on the commercial boys a little. Whatever damage had been done to the shark population has definately been healed. With this many teeth out there we are probably going to see more attacks (on folks)this summer again. I sure don't want to kill 'em all but it would be nice to thin 'em out some!
The report from over at the "Pass" is Tripletail everywhere. My son said he saw over 30 on 2 different days just out "play fishing".- Thats 30 each day in a couple hours! Said he just threw his flyrod one day and resited the spinning rod no matter how frustrated any particular fish would get him. I can't believe nobody wants to charter over there to do that. Im hoping there are lots left when I get over there in July!
Thinking of july- if you want to Tarpon fish ( or sight fish tripletails!) give me a call. I'm only about 1/2 booked for July to jump silver rockets.
capt Larry Pentel
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