After a couple weeks off local waters, I fished Monday, 6/18 with brothers Mark and Robert Duhlberg and their children. We fished about 12 miles out of New Pass with live shrimp, and we caught Spanish mackerel to 23 inches, keeper mangrove snapper, whitebone porgies, triggerfish and porkfish. We released gag grouper shorts to 18 inches and a 3 ˝ foot sand shark.
Tuesday, Gary Jones, his brother and seven-year-old nephew fished with me in 36 feet off New Pass. We caught Spanish mackerel to 26 inches, keeper lane snapper, porgies, grunts and triggerfish. Our little angler caught four nice Spanish and a load of porgies.
Uli and Uta Scheider and friends Bill and Joe fished in 32 feet out of New Pass with me on Wednesday. Their favorite is Spanish mackerel, and we did well with those to 26 inches free-lining shrimp in a chum slick. We also caught some porgies.
Dr. Leon Mead and son, Spencer, fished with me Thursday at the reefs off Bonita Beach, where we caught and released 30 Spanish mackerel to 26 inches. We also caught keeper mangrove and lane snapper to 12 inches and a 14 inch flounder, all on live shrimp.
It was a tough morning of fishing for the Bill Kaufman party on Friday. We started off the morning later than planned, due to no shrimp available at the bait shops. After delaying our trip 40 minutes for the promise of bait, we finally gave up and I brought a small reserve of live shrimp from my bait tank, along with some sardines. We headed out to about 30 feet out of New Pass, and we fished from 30 to 45 feet, having to move around a bit due to a slow bite and the interference from porpoise. I even turned my sonar off to deter the porpoise, but they found us no matter where we anchored. Although no bad weather was expected, we encountered three thunderstorms and four water spouts. One of the latter was pretty close by, and appeared to be about a quarter mile in size. Bill took some photos of that one. We ended up with keeper Spanish mackerel, porgies, and grunts—enough to keep the young angler onboard excited and happy, but short of the ideal we had hoped for. We released red and gag grouper shorts.
The photo shown is of angler Dick Arnell with a 16 inch mangrove snapper caught on shrimp on a recent offshore trip.
