Cape Coral - Fort Myers - Sanibel
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After what seems like an eternity of somewhat crappy weather, the forecast was calling for lighter winds and reasonable seas (forecast 10 knots with 2 ft seas laying down in afternoon). Pushed out from dock around 430AM and made the run out for the early bite. Found some decent shows which produced some quality grouper. Kyle, Wally and I put together a solid box of fish. We planned to keep on running out to the 160-200 ft range, but the seas and wind continued to pick up thru the day with no let down. Our furthest point of the day was around 60 miles out and 140+ ft of water. Caught a bunch of American Red Snapper that we let go. Porgies, lane snapper, vermillion snapper and red grouper were all welcomed home for dinner. We found a big piece of floating debris that had some small dolphin on it. We put one in the box at 20" to the fork. Biggest grouper came in at 30", with 2 others close behind at 29". Small grouper for the day was a solid and healthy 25" fish. Great day on the water and happy to see the seas allow us to get out.
Started the day off by making the run thru pine island sound out towards redfish pass. Lots of osprey, a couple bottle nosed dolphins were seen on the way out. We made it out thru the pass and set up on our first spot in 60 ft of water. A bunch of sand perch (squirrel fish) were caught and kept for live/cut bait. Soon, the Lane snapper began biting with a flury of fish coming on board. After boxing about a dozen, we made a quick move and set up on our second spot. Here, we caught a nice JoltHead Porgy, lots of Lane Snapper, and some close to legal Red Grouper. We had 3-4 BIG Thumps on the bottom that ultimately beat the anglers. A long, drag screaming run that pulled out about 250 yards of line before coming unglued. This was for sure a bigggg kingfish. We continued to add some quality snapper to the box, ultimately boxing a little over 50 total. I gave the 5 minutes notice before we headed back in when the flatline again takes off on a steady long run. Paul battled back and forth with the fish for nearly 1/2 an hour before we got a visual of the fish: A large 6-7 ft Lemon shark! We got it boatside about a 1/2 dozen times where it would again take off on a drag screaming run. We got it to the boat for a pic or two before sending him on its way. With sore arms, we made the run back in thru beautiful, calm seas!
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January 2026
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