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Report for Destin, Florida - Nearshore
Capt. Larry Pentel
June 29, 2000
Destin - Saltwater Fishing Report
OFFSHORE
Thursday morning and I'm watching the rain blow by the window and whitecaps on the bay. It seems I usually write these reports when it's blowing a gale and I can't be on the water. My trip seemed very disapointed when I called to cancel this morning but today would not have been vacation material.
The past week has had some beautiful weather and some excellent fishing. Yesterdays charter was a gentleman from Arkansas, his two grown sons and two grandsons. The Gulf was flat calm with just a few rain showers on the horizon. Our first stop at 7:45 was about 3 and half miles right in front of their beach house. I had a livewell full of pinfish and a bag of herring ready to go. It took about 5 minutes to get the first bite but once they started it just kept getting faster and more furious. If you sent down a dead bait you got a snapper bite. A live bait had an amberjack on the end of your line in no time. Most of the jacks were short but two of the party didn't care, they just wanted a fight and the jacks gave 'em plenty. The two grandkids figured out how to catch snappers pretty quickly and decided they liked that better since I was putting them in the box. Grandad caught a couple fish but was busy trying to take pictures of his boys holding up fish or hanging on to doubled up rods. We got to spend about a an hour and a half on that spot untill a little squall came at us and pushed offshore in search of larger snappers. They weren't quite as fast at biting but obligingly bit at each spot I stopped on. When it was time to go and I said "last down" we even got a bonus fish! One of the boys had a huge bite on a live bait and after much ado pulled a 15# king to the boat. He had hooked him right in the nose so the mono leader wasn't even nicked. We headed in a little after 11:00 with 16 snappers, a big black snapper, 2 jacks, 2 mackerals some trigers, mingos, pogies and 2 rolls of great fish pictures.
Sometimes I think my folks just seem to be luckier than the average angler. I ran a family trip last week with folks that basically just wanted to catch a mess. Dad Really wanted to catch a shark and asked about trolling for Dolphin ( Mahi) but the rest of the crew voted him down and wanted to bottom fish. We had a beautiful day and the fish were co-operating. At 10:30, about an hour before time to go I pulled up to a good snapper rock to finish out our limit. The first down everybody gets a bite, up comes a nice red snapper and all of a sudden there are 25 to 30 3' to 4' sharks all around the boat. Dads elated, everybodys excited and in the next 45 minutes we had the whole crew hooked up a couple of times, released a bunch and put 2 in the box for pictures and the freezer. As everyones calming down and I'm trying to organize the boat for the ride in I saw a green flash by the stern. I had one big spinning rod left rigged that hadn't gotten into the shark rally. I flipped a live bait out right behind the boat, handed Dad the rod and yelled "set the hook" as the dolphin skyrocketed on the cigar minnow. The fish put on a great acrobatic display and looked really good laying on top of the box of Snappers and triggers. Everybody got just what they wanted and I've got another regular customer with 1 trip booked and another working out the date.
The kings seem to have shown up for the summer and are eager to bite a slow trolled live bait. As always they seem to move around from one spot to the next over night but if you stick with it we've had some really impresive catches.
INSHORE
The surf fishing for the shorebound crowd has been limited to the bays with the arrival of lots of seaweed on the beaches. While there are still spanish, skipjacks and pompano in the surf it is impossible to fish without fouling up with grass.
As if to compensate it seems the the bay fishing had picked up. It may be because we are finally getting a little rain and the salinity levels have dropped some. For whatever reason the trout seem to be biting again, The black snappers have made a showing at all the big bridges and the bull redfish are patroling East Pass. If you go chasing reds from the jetties or the bridge try to time your trip with the outgoing tide. Usually much better fishing and no seaweed.
Lets go- don't just bring the sunscreen; take the family too! But be careful, if your wife outfishes you you'll hear about it till next year.
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