6/30 – Just plain incredible fishing.

Folks – it’s on. The nearshore fishing is as good as its been in years – its because everything is good, the backwaters, the inlets, and the inshore and nearshore fishery – everything is biting.

Backwaters/nearshore – The spanish mackerel are thick all over the inlet and beaches – you can catch as many as you want most mornings. The redfish are chewing back in the rivers and marsh and there are a good number of speckled trout around. On the nearshore wrecks and reefs there are kings, big spanish and a surprising number of flounder (aka, the flounder bite is starting to materialize better than that of 2007).

Inshore 5 -20 miles – During the month of June I’ve been spending a lot of my time fishing in the 5-15 mile range and everything is WIDE OPEN. The fishing for kings, mahi-mahi, big spanish mackerel & amberjacks – and everything else that will eat a live-bait is as good as I have ever experienced. Most days we can barely keep a line in the water – and my clients will atest to this! The numbers of mahi-mahi have been the biggest treat – we’re catching good numbers of bailers and gaffers just about every trip. During a few days, we’ve even caguth 20+ mahi less than 12 miles from the beach!!

[b]EVERY PICTURE IN THIS REPORT (minus the pompano) was taken within 15miles of the beach!!![/b]

[b]OPENINGS:

LAST MINUTE – WEDNESDAY JULY 2nd (FORCAST is PERFECT)

July 4 (fri), 6(sun) & more later in the month – my weekends are pretty short.[/b]

A few of my trips from the last couple of weeks….

My good friend and old client Dr. Anthony came to fish with me for a few days and the forcast fell apart quickly – during one 15-20 Southwester we decided to go for it anyway. We got ours butts kicked a little bit – but it was well worth it. We found all the dolphin you would want, a ton of AJs and my boats first African Pompano (which fell for a butterfly jig). We also lost another pompano, had mahi on poppers, a bunch of big triggerfish – we were a little short on photos due to the rough seas.

I look forward all year to fishing with Dave Z and his lovely wife, Beth – I tell them this, but they think I am pulling their legs. Well, I mean it.

Day 1 – We had a great day fishing in the 10-15 mile range and we got into a slew of mahi-mahi (landing over 15 with several really nice gaffers – with beth landing her first dolphin!), king mackerel, big spanish mackerel and even a false albacore. The AJs did not come out to play today…but the dolphin were as thick as I have seen them this close in years – no weeds but we could see bailers swimming past the boat at times.

We ended the day hooking into a pair of 20lb gaffers with Beth landing the bull – and they put on a huge show. What a day y’all!

Beth’s first dolphin!

Day 2 w/ Dave Z – this time we had his brother-in-law Wade on board and the trip was their mutual fathers day gift. It was a bit windy during the morning so we spent a while flounder fishing – and we did very well, landing around 13 5 with 6 or 7 keepers with 3 over 4lbs (largest being a 5.1lb citation). Best yet? They threw all but 2 back! We also caught a nice cobia during the process!

After we were done with the flatties – we headed off the beach and found kings, big spanish, small mahi (several which fell victim to mr. cuda) and a big AJ for Wade that put up an epic fight on 20lb gear.

5.1lb citation

4.75lb – RELEASED!

4.5lbs – RELEASED!

I had Mike and his son today – and we found dolphin right off the bat, going for 2 for 3 on some decent gaffers while i was trying to jig bait – less than 4 miles off the beach!!! After that we went a little further out and found the motherload of AJs, several big spaniards, a couple of kings and a good number of bailer dolphin.

Jay and his son, my main man, Craig had an incredible day – and when I say that we couldnt keep a line in the water, I mean it. We hardly went 5 minutes without a bite, all day. We had big spanish, several dolphin, kings and the motherload of AJs – we could not keep them off our baits and we had them all over our butterfly jigs. We had mackerel skying all over our baits – and we even had a couple of tunas (I am 99% certain they were the yellow kind) crash our baits. Cudas ate both of them. Next time – I eat the cudas in retaliation.

Craigs first dolphin!

5.57lb spanish

George and his son had a great time putting a hurtin’ on some kings today – we also had several big spanish and a nice handful of mahi (with one nice gaffer) – not bad for being only 10-15 miles from the beach!

John and his dad Butch – whelp, we had an extremely memorable day. We didnt catch all that many dolphin (we had a few bailers and had a big 20 or so pound cow to the boat which broke off in the tabs when a cuda tried to eat it) BUT we hammered the kings and big spanish – all the kings were in the 10-15lb range.

Other memorable things:

1)Cudas ate probably 10 different fish today.

2)We “released” a 45lb or so king boatside.

3)We hooked up a 12foot tiger shark – it circled the boat once and then went after a 3 inch cigar minnow I was trolling. It came up behind it like a scene out of JAWS – we followed it for about 30 minutes as it went about its business. It was like being hooked into a nuclear submarine.

A 5.5lb and a 5.25lb spanish!

William and his son had a great day with the kings and dolphin – we put several nice gaffers in the boat and a bunch of kings. We also had 50lb or so cobia eat a menhaden 7 times – next time, we wont be so anxious with the hook set 😉

Chip and his wife had a great time with the AJs, kings and cobia – we lost a nice ‘un and had a bout 70lb fish in the propwash. I spazzed out and blew the opportunity 😳

Frank and co had an action filled day – we hammered the kings and big spanish (landing over 15 fish in the 2-4lb range). Most of the kings were small – 26-28″ but we did “release” a 20lb king boatside – we also had a few bailer dolphin in the mix.