Venice Inlet and the Gulf of Mexico
Capt. Dave Pinkham
September 19, 2007
Venice - Saltwater Fishing Report
The Gulf has been Beautiful
Fishing action out on the Gulf this week was about the same as it was last week. On the shorter trips inside of 20-miles offshore of the Venice, Englewood Beach area we’ve been catching a mixed bag of gag and red grouper, lane snapper, mangrove snapper, Spanish mackerel, bonito, and shark.
Over the weekend I guided a 6-hour trip and ran south to a small sailboat wreck I have in about 50-foot of water. Incidentally, I actually found this wreck while trolling. It was mid-March several years back and I was trolling with four lines out. Two of the rigs were set up with planning boards and king spoons attached, and on the other two rigs I had Stretch-30 deep trolling lures. On that day as I out of pure luck ran directly over the wreckage on the bottom all four rods went down hard with gag grouper striking all four of the lures. Anyway, in the excitement I punched the man overboard on my GPS and saved the coordinates.
Back to the present, this weekend I had high hopes to catch some good fish on this wreck, although I was somewhat apprehensive that there may be some Goliath grouper living there with different ideas.
Sure enough, I was right and we only managed to snatch a couple of mangrove snapper up off the wreckage before the big Goliaths decided it must be feeding time.
From there we moved on to some hard bottom just west of the wreck in 60-foot of water. The color fish finder showed plenty of fish and we anchored over a good stack. The action was decent and everyone aboard caught quite a few fish before the bite turned off.
The remained of the charter we just kept bouncing from one spot to the next. The fish would turn on for about 20-minutes or so before the bite would slow and eventually shut off. One thing is for sure, the Gulf is absolutely beautiful right now so it’s a great time to get offshore for some fishing.
Remember, if you’re too busy to go fishing you’re just too busy. Get out and go fishing cuz’ it’s good fer ya!
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