Sails, Whales & Mahi Tales
Capt. Larry Pentel
August 17, 2009
Destin - Saltwater Fishing Report
What an incredible past 2 weeks! Kinda hard to figure where to start but I guess it should be with the big fish- Really BIG Fish! There has been a school (pod?) of Whale Sharks living in the Grayton/Seagrove area for at least the past 12 days. They have stayed within about a 20 square mile area and while they haven't been feeding on the surface everyday we have had several days where not only would at least one stay on the surface they would let us get the boat right next to 'em and even let us swim with them, totally unconcerned about our presence. You have no idea just how "big" a 35 foot long fish is until you swim along side one!
Like I said-they would swim right by the boat!
A full view, hard to judge size with no perspective.
Feeding on the surface with a mouth 8 feet wide!
For a little perspective- That's me cruising along with one we estimated at 35'
After about 5 minutes of riding on this animals back I came to the realization that I was nothing more than another (big) remora to a creature this size! I was fortunate enough to glide along with him ( her?) for about 15 minutes! Each animal (we saw at least 5 different sharks of various size from about 15' to close to 40') had an entourage of thousands of fish swimming along with 'em. Cigar Minnows, Moonfish, Remoras, Mackerels, Tropicals. Each one was it's own ecosystem. Oh yea, they each had at least 20 cobia hangin' with 'em! Now most were smaller undersized fish but we landed 2 nice ones off a critter the first day we found him and Capt Jimbo Bishop got a couple a few days later off another shark! All in all it has been the experience of a lifetime for myself and a bunch of my charters!
Okay, back to the "fishin report". We have been able to spend all this time watchin' the big fish cause it has been very easy to fill the box up. Who ever it is that says there are no red snapper has never been in the Gulf- Until the season ended Fri everybody was limiting out on (big) snappers rather quickly.
Another great catch of Snappers and Kings on a half day
What to do with the rest of the trip after the snappers are in the box ? Why go for pelagics of course! The water right off the beach has been that crystal clear, deep blue offshore water. Along with the offshore water comes the offshore fish ! We were fortunate enough to get 2 Sailfish to the boat last week ! Both were released and swam off appearing healthy and perky.
What a sight!
This was the smaller one!
Along with the sails came the Mahi. Not just the regular summer schoolies but full grown Bulls and Cows. We have boated 5 "real" ones the past week and jumped off several more. In addition to all this the King Macks have been ferocious. There were a couple days where I was having to put the bait on the hook under the cover board 'cause I was afraid a king would jump in the boat if they saw a minnow in it!
A Great Board!
If you look at the picture above again you'll notice that there are no Red Snappers (those 3 are lanes)- This was the first trip after reds had closed. If we had been able to keep a couple reds I sure don't know where we could have hung 'em!
Tropical storm Claudette had the Gulf too sloppy to fish today- that was yesterday mornings board in the pic above. I don't see how the bite could get any better but it usually does after a storm--- we'll just have to wait and see tomorrow morning!
Capt Larry Pentel
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