Smiles Per Gallon

Capt. Ted Gibson
September 17, 2018
Naples - Saltwater Fishing Report

Took a party of four from New Hampshire out yesterday on a 4.5 hour charter. Dayna and Andrea (the two ladies) had never fished before. We ran out to 10 miles and started fishing in about 36' after about 45 minutes we only caught one small mangrove snapper in a spot that 2 days ago we had caught a limit relatively easily. The water was pretty brown and we smelled some red tide, so we decided to run SW about 8 more miles to a spot I had only driven over in the past, but I always wanted to try. We get to the new spot at which point we are almost 21 miles from the dock (far for a half day trip).

The water was much cleaner at the new spot and we began marking all kinds of fish on the Garmin. I checked the drift and dropped the anchor. As soon as we dropped the chum bag in; mangrove snapper, jack crevalle, and blue runners started coming to the boat. We began catching all kinds of fish and got broke off by a couple big ones on the bottom (when we could reach bottom; there were so many snapper it was hard to find).

The day was saved at this point and my crew was pretty stoked! Dayna had never even caught a fish in her life before and she must have caught 20 yesterday. Everything was great and I was started to get ready to head back in when...our freeline with a crab started screaming out line. I totally forgot about putting the crab out and it took a second to realize what was happening. I grabbed the rod out of the t-top and passed it off to Mike (dark blue shirt) and told him to hang on. After about a 20 minute fight on very light gear we pulled in a good sized Permit.

It was an awesome morning and worth the extra gas to catch that Permit at the very end!

Naples Fishing Forecast:

There are fish to be caught if you can find clean water and avoid the Red Tide.

Target Species:

Mangrove Snapper, Permit

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