Cape Coral - Fort Myers - Sanibel
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headed offshore with Jc, Rick and Sarah looking to bend some rods. pushed out of pineland marina at 7AM to pretty calm seas (2ft or so) and made the run out around 30 mph. Picked up some bait around 70 ft of water and continued out. Went to stop at a wreck and there was already a boat anchored on it with divers in the water. Tried a drift parallel to him but no activity, so outwards we pushed. Worked some spots in 130-150 ft of water with a few shows, but nothing wanting to chew. Finally got our first eat out in 150 ft which yielded a solid Red Grouper. caught a few more shorts and bite went cold.
Pushed back in to the wreck and the spearfisherman were still there, so worked bottom in the area. I yielded a pretty fat and large Lane, 2 more keeper Red Grouper, and a bunch of 19.5 inch throwbacks. The boat finally left the wreck and we motored over to see if we could find. It had a ton of activity busting on the surface. The sharks were everywhere. We hooked up on 3 different ajs, two of which we only received 1/2 a fish back on... The third was landed and it went 33.5 inches, just shy of legal. Jc worked a jig and was rewarded with a nice 20" mutton snapper. We caught a couple barracudas on topwater poppers as well as freelined live baits. On our last drift, i cast out a manns stretch 30 and was hammered instantly. Passed the rod off to Rick. Around the same time Jc's rod goes off and drag is screaming pretty good. Rick got his fish to the boat first, an estimated 200 lb bull shark. The plug was on the outside of its face so i figured to try and retrieve it. Used my t handle gaff to lift up the shark from the jaw and turned out to be a big mistake. It went into a death roll thrashing around and rolled my hand a direction it should not go... Resulted in me letting go of the gaff, but not fast enough... Pulsating pain radiated up my arm, and hand felt like a stick of dynamite went off... shark screamed back off... At this point JC's fish has color... i look over and see its a stud african pompano. worked it boatside and in the boat she goes. Looking at my hand/finger, it was obvious something was broken and we packed it up for the ride on in. Went for xrays on Weds and low and behold, split the bone nearly in half. pretty challenging being on my dominant hand... All in all a beautiful day with some very high quality fish in the boat. Had a group of 6 that joined me both friday and saturday for 3/4 days of offshore fun. Friday was the bottom fishing (snapper grouper day) and saturday would be the "bigger fish" wreck day.
We met up at pineland both days for a 7AM start. Friday, we pushed out of Captiva Pass with a pretty strong east wind, giving us a dominant following sea on the way out. Winds were sustained 20+. We pushed out around 30 miles for our first stop. It yielded a few lane snapper as well as our largest (landed) red grouper of the day at around 27". We pushed out deeper in search of more grouper. With the large seas, the group had a hard time feeling the snapper bite most of the day. We had some BIG hook ups with rods doubled over, but got the best of our team for the day. We managed a couple more grouper for the box and a decent pile of lanes, vermillion, and a lone mangrove snapper. Lost a grouper or 2 to sharks which have been pretty abundant even in areas that usually dont have any... The winds laid down to about 15 for our ride home which made the ride in pretty comfortable. Saturday, we had lighter winds to start the day, but they progressively increased as the day went on. We pushed out to find some bait. The brown water extended out to around 80 ft with the strong east wind pushing it out. We stopped for bait around the color change and it was a slow pick of Squirel fish, tomtates, a lone blue runner, a few spanish sardines. Couldnt hardly keep the lane snapper and mangroves off the sabiki rigs. With about 3 dozen baits in the well, we pushed on out. We dropped baits down and the fish were hungry and chewing. First few hookups busted us off in the wreck. Every bait down would get hit within minutes. Probably one of the best bites Ive seen on the wrecks in term of cooperation. We had a bunch of reef sharks caught thru the day. Our first aj to the boat was the smallest at 39.5" to the fork. All others were well over the 40" mark. The ladies joined in on the fun and each boated a respectable aj for the box. We had a couple big runoffs on the flat line, one for sure was a big king that chewed thru the stinger rig. Everyone had an absolute blast and I am sure are nursing sore arms today. Decided to finish off all the live baits and called it a day. Tons of meat for the smoker and grill for this group! |
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January 2026
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