Monday, 4/21, I headed out from New Pass to 43 feet with Bill Story and friends. We caught a keeper hogfish, released a smaller one of those, and caught grunts, porgies and porkfish. A couple of the guys had good-sized gags hooked, but lost them in the rocks.
Tuesday, Ron Musick, Ron Allison, Justin Baker, Eddie Alfonso and Ray Vincent and I headed out to 26 miles out of New Pass to start, and ended up about 35 miles off Naples, fishing with live shrimp. We ended up with ten keeper yellowtail snapper and fifteen large whitebone porgies all around two pounds. We released more porgies, triggerfish and lots of gag and scamp grouper shorts.
Wednesday, in 43 feet out of New Pass, the winds picked up and made it a little sloppy, but it was an otherwise nice day on the water, with comfortable temperatures and low humidity. Anglers Tom Firth, his sister Wendy Borgman, and friends Brad Heckes and Fernando Morias caught three keeper mangrove snapper to 17 inches, grunts and large whitebone porgies on shrimp. We released lots of gag and red grouper shorts to 19 inches, blue runners and triggerfish. We used a couple of blue runners on balloons to hook a couple nice kingfish, but both of them cut the line and broke off.
David & Janice Russell and their two young children fished a catch-and-release trip in Estero Bay with me on Thursday. The bite was slow but we released four snapper, five sheepshead and a spadefish during a morning of fishing with live shrimp.
Friday, Mike & Lea Connealy and daughter, Mandy, fished with me in 43 feet out of New Pass, where we caught mangrove snapper to 14 inches and whitebone porgies to 14 inches. We kept a few of those and released the rest, along with lots of gag shorts to 20 inches and red grouper shorts to 19 inches, grunts and porkfish.
Saturday morning I headed back out to 43 feet, this time with long-time customers Sandy and Rusty Hook, Rusty's young son, Charlie, and family friend, Sam. We caught lots of porgies and grunts again and we lost a bonito when it wrapped around a crab-trap buoy after running out 165 yards of line. But young Charlie has the best fish story to tell: He had dropped a live shrimp over on a spinning rod with 17 pound test line. A small blue runner bit the shrimp and Charlie started to reel in. Just as he did that, along came Mr. 29-inch gag grouper to bite the blue runner, and Charlie ended up with a much bigger prize than he expected! With a little help from the captain, he landed that gag and was more than happy to be photographed with it!
