The weather shaped up nicely for a late afternoon/evening snapper/kingfish trip Wed evening. The ocean was about as flat as it gets as we made our way offshore. The first couple drifts produced little interest from the fish, but as the sun sank down the fish came to life. The kingfish really lit it up for about 30 minutes as we stuck fish after fish on dead sardines. We let all but one go, and then moved on looking for some snapper. As the sun sank down we managed a good number of very nice fat mangroves, and a whole bunch of baby muttons. Kept a few for a fresh snapper dinner, and left the fish biting as we wrapped it up around 9:30.
We are getting into our usual summertime pattern; calm seas, afternoon seabreeze, late afternoon thunderstorm, and a calm ocean at night. If you wait out the afternoon thunderstorm or manage to jump around them you can really get into a hot bite offshore right now, and beat the brutal summertime heat. Plus it's drifting and you can't beat saving a little bit of gas right now.
Also, the big snook are flowing onto the beach and into the inlet right now. I would like to say congratulations to one of my best customers Paul Raynor who became a member of the 20lb plus snook club this week. Paul stuck a true slob snook fishing the beach w/ a 4" Gulp! shrimp early one morning. Handle the big girls with care and revive them fully, but most of all have a good time catching them!
Thanks For Reading and Good Luck Everyone,
Todd