Cape Coral - Fort Myers - Sanibel
|
RSS Feed
|
Headed out this morning with a party of 4. They were looking to score some meat for a couple meals this week including a big fish fry tonight.
Pulled off the dock at 5 am from the cape yacht club. Heavier Storms off of redfish pass on the radar ultimately changed my game plan, so we ran south-west to look for some fishing willing to eat. The bite was consistent all day, with lots of throwback fish mixed in with the keepers. The end was a barrage of legal size grouper nearly every drop. We left them biting as to not risk killing the fish from bringing them up from the depths. A dozen or so snapper of the yellowtail and Lane variety rounded out the 4 man limit of grouper. They should be eating very well this upcoming week! Took Wes and Laurens family out for some fun fishing. We started off catching a couple large spanish macs that were terrorizing a small bait ball. after putting a couple in the boat on lures, we continued on out. We anchored up over some good shows, and threw out the chumbag. Within minutes we were catching yellowtail snapper, key west grunts, and lane snapper. Lauren caught a surprise mutton snapper which was just shy of being a keeper, followed by another mutton shortly thereafter that was legal. Wes and Colin free lined for yellowtail and caught lots of nice keepers for the box. The tide slowed down with the slack tide, so we picked up anchor and moved a few miles away in search of more fish. with opposing winds and tide that had us doing figure 8s, we went ahead and drifted some good live bottom where we caught a handful of red grouper, some nice lane snapper, grunts, and other bottom dwellers. Wes had a smashing hit that unfortunately came unglued. The youngest member of the family, 6 yr old Chase (sp?) reeled in many fish as well with the help of mom, dad, first mate Lee and Capt Dan.
A great day on the water with some great folks! Ran out to 180 feet of water prospecting new grounds. Tide was screaming. needed 12 ounces plus to hold bottom. Picked up a quick limit of red snapper along with some very nice vermillion snappers. a few red grouper came up. Constant bite all day. Ran back in shallower to escape the tide and picked up a few grouper for the box.
7/4 we headed out a little over 50 miles to look for some grouper. Bite was solid until about 11ish when it just shut down. Yvette picked up a gorgeous lane snapper that hit 19 inches along with a solid red grouper. Her husband Chris also had a hot hand picking up 2 more stud grouper along with some nice lane snapper up to 16 inches for the box . Patrick had some lane snapper also to 16", and the biggest grouper of the day which was right before the bite shut down. While everyone was bottom bumping, a school of peanut mahi came around. I tried throwing squid, pilchards, threadfin, pinfish, and shrimp at them to no avail. a naked 1/16 ounce chartreuse jighead was more than they could resist and i put 3 in the box. We lost a couple other big grouper that just weren't ready to become dinner. With some severe weather on the horizon, and some gnarly lightning strikes, I made the call to head on in to celebrate the 4th! Hope everyone had a great 4th!
Had some gentleman from Miami come over to do a night time offshore snapper fishing trip off of Ft Myers. We headed out just before sunset. We sabiki'd up some live pinfish, spot tails and squirrel fish for the livewell. While the bight was never on fire, but we did have a methodical and steady pick with some nice mangrove snapper and lane snapper joining us for dinner. We caught alot of different species, including Red Grouper, sharks, Triggerfish, Grunts, Gag Grouper and many more. There were several fish that hit and could not be stopped. The boys will have a great fish fry!
|
Archives
January 2026
|