Cape Coral - Fort Myers - Sanibel
|
RSS Feed
|
Got a late booking to get out and do some rod bending for sunday, so got the boat ready and off the docks of pineland marina by 645. Talked over our gameplan and decided to go for some bigger fish over the wrecks. Made a bait pit stop around 70-80 feet of water which produced a handful of spanish sardines, 1 nice speedo, 1 blue runner, a handful of squirrel fish, a couple spot tailed grunts... With the full moon, i wanted to get out as early as possible so didnt spend a ton of time catching live bait...
pulled up to the wreck and set out some bottom rigs... lots of fish marked throughout the water column, but no takers on first 2 drifts... set up a flatline with the runner on a stinger rig and it was almost immediately game on... fish ripped off drag and didnt want to stop....Chris took the rod and fought it like a champ.. excellent use of the rod... every time he would gain 20 or 30 yds the fish would rip out that much or more... After a good back and forth battle, a nice AJ was put in the boat. Next up would be Melissa whos flatline also took off like a bat out of hell, but the run was much shorter and less vigorous... a few minutes later a small barracuda was added to the box. Next up was Richie, our youngest angler on the boat... We were running low on baits at this point and had a grunt and squirrel fish out on the flatlines... the rod with the 6500 size penn spinfisher v with the squirrel fish with a 6/0 circle hook on 80 lb leader doubles overs and absolutely SCREAMS off the reel. I slowly kept tightening the drag, but this fish just kept going! First run dumped nearly the whole spool to where i could see the backing! As soon as the fish stopped its initial run, Richie cranked like crazy to gain back line as the fish was running back at us... he did an amazing job of keeping a nice bend in the rod so as not to take off the pressure. The fish came towards the boat but had a bunch of energy left in him, and made multiple runs away from the boat. little by little, you could see the fish starting to loose its stamina and energy. Finally, we broke its spirit and a true SMOKER kingfish hit the deck on the end of the gaff. High fives and WOOOO's! all the way around. Quick picture and in the box it went. Set up for another drift and flatline gets hit yet again... this one rips off some serious drag and had some shoulders! Melissa fought the fish till her arms gave out and then Chris took over from there... some of this fishes runs were just amazing..... 50-100 yds gone in no time! After a short while, we got it boatside for a quick photo and then released to fight another day. The next flatline went off and Richie is up fighting another fish... it pulled off some drag, but not like its bigger brothers. He put the whoopin on a fun sized almaco jack. We had a handful of other takes and drops, slashed baits with no hookup... Altogether an absolutely fantastic day with everyone smiling. We caught a pretty good rain storm just as we entered Captiva Pass, so raincoats on and a slow cruise till we got thru the thick of it. A little rain is always welcome to rinse the boat and gear down a the end of a trip. LOL Here is to hoping the weather Gods send me some decent weather this weekend for Saturday... Tight Lines all! Had a 1/2 day charter out of Pineland Marina with Dave and Dave Jr. (father/son). We pushed off the dock at 7AM to a beautiful sunrise. We worked our way on out thru captiva pass out to our first stop in 70ish feet of water. Not much at spots 1 and two (both with 200 feet of each other) but a quick look at spot three showed some good marks and fish ready to chew! We drifted thru them picking up some nice lane snapper and a slew of short red grouper. Another drift and Dave Sr has his rod double over with something much larger! He worked the fish well and had him within 10 ft or so of the surface when the big red grouper came unglued and swam back down... Not to get our hopes down, we continued working the area. The big rod with the squirrel fish goes off, and Dave Sr. is able to work a nice 23" Red Grouper up and into the ice box. We continued fishing catching more undersize red grouper, lanes, vermillion snapper, triggerfish, key west grunts and more. We headed back to the dock with around 20 Lane snappers and the new nice red grouper on ice. They are sure to make a fantastic dinner!
Had a 3/4 day trip with Sam and family. We headed offshore in search of some hard pulling fish. We headed off to a deeper wreck looking for some ajs, sharks, cudas and anything else that might want to play. First flatlined baits got hit almost immediately with several cutoffs (cudas). Deployed a flatline with a stinger rig and hooked up to a speedy cuda that put on a nice aerial show as well as some drag ripping runs. Around the same time a couple of our bottom rods go off and get us back to the wreck. Landed the cuda...
put out a few more bottom rigs and Owens rod doubles over... lots of hard pulling and digging, drag screaming runs... Owen played him fantastic. After a few minutes of back and forth, up comes a big AJ... Id estimate him in the 55-60 lb class. We dropped down the bottom rods again and continued to hook up time and time again... Many of the fish were giants and got the best of us as they got back down to the bottom, or wore thru the 60 and 80 lb leader... Sam got a hook up on another decent fish and played him perfectly, putting another 36" AJ in the boat. I deployed the bent butt rod with a 3 lb piece of bonita... it resulted in a nice fight on an estimated 7 ft bull shark... got him within 20 ft of the boat and wore thru the leader (perfect!) Another flat line goes off and runs and runs and runs... after circling the boat a ton of times, turned out to be a really big black tip... safely released boatside. We hooked and fought a bunch of fish that ultimately got the best of them. Was a fun time, and I always love the sound of a singing drag! Rods stayed bent all day and everyone went home with sore arms and stories to tell. Weather was perfect. Fish bite was on. Couldnt ask for a better day offshore! Had a group of 6, some local, some from Denver Colorado looking to get out and bend some rods. We departed from Pineland Marina at 645 AM and made our way out thru Captiva Pass. I will say the water around the marina looked decent. No Crazy nasty smells, no dead fish apparent. Didnt see anything until we got outside Captiva Pass in the 30-40 ft zone. We had a strong east wind and an outgoing tide at the time.
We pushed on out to the 65-70 ft zone and found nice clean water with lots of fliers and birds working the area. We dropped down knocker rigs and were greeted by some decent lane snapper and short RGs immediately. Only a few minutes in we hook into something bigger, turned out to be a nice 23" Red Grouper. The wind and tide were both pushing pretty hard, and we were fishing solid 3-4s with 15-20 mph steady winds. The boat drifts pretty darn god in these conditions, and you really dont notice the seas till its time to run back head into them. With the cat, you push it harder into the waves and the ride gets even better. With enough fish on ice for dinner, we decided to run in a bit and see if we couldnt get something much larger. We made our stop just a few miles in, and dropped down some 1-2 lb chunks of bonita. Less than 2 minutes later and the rod tip starts to move and we come tight on a big girl. We had her 1/2 way up when the hook pulled. We repeated the process a couple more times, each of which resulted in the fish coming off... Try number 4 was our charm. Fish inhaled the big bait and we came tight . She ripped some drag off the 50W and the rod was doubled over. A few back and forth's and a solid 150-200 lb Goliath Grouper was brought alongside the boat, then safely released to fight another day. Was a fun and productive day on the water. On the way back in, saw more dead fish and sea life (namely turtles) floating dead in the 30-40 ft zone being pushed out by the wind and tides. The dead fish continued all the way back in thru captiva pass where you could see 2 definitive lines of dead fish, mostly cat fish, pinfish and pilchards. I wouldnt want to risk fishing inshore right now, but offshore 8-10 miles out and further seem to be good right now. |
Archives
January 2026
|