Hello all, this past weekends group charter wanted to get back early on Palm Sunday so we changed up the departure time and got underway at noon instead of 10pm. This would change up the trips timing for night fishing as it really only gives us 1 full night and a few hours on night two. If the fish were gonna make us work hard to fill the boxes, having only one full night could turn out to be a problem. Thankfully the fish wanted to pay us a visit and this fishing report is not one of those “we’ll get em’ next time” reports. Nope this is one of those “holy mackerel, it was awesome” reports.
We arrived a few minutes after sundown in 180 feet and as I was circling around trying to get the feel of the current and where the fish were on the structure I just couldn’t get a positive vibe on how to anchor up so when that happens you got to just do it and correct if needed afterwards. Well I didn’t get it quite right, we caught a few nice mangos but the lines just weren’t fishing the bottom right so after a few minutes I called out lines up and then reset the anchor. This time I got it right! the bite was instant.. No waiting just “to the bottom and you gottem” fishing for a couple hours. It was Mango, Mutton, Vermillion, Yellowtail and Porgy action at its finest. It was a bit sloppy out, not horrible but just uncomfortable. A few of the guys were weren’t feeling to hot so I kept the moves short, luckily the fish were biting and we only had to make a hand full of moves all night to keep the action going. We had a big African Pompano, a whole bunch of Mutton Snapper and a few real jumbos, King Mackerel, big B-liners ETC.. We just were catching fish, all kinds of fish.
After daybreak we went out a bit deeper in search of Red and Scamp Grouper, I wouldn’t call the day bite spectacular but it definitely was not slow. We caught a good mess of Scamps and had a very good day of Red Grouper fishing. Our best stop was 10 keeper reds and 3 keeper Scamp. At every move the anglers would put out the trolling gear, we had a few small fish and a really nice wahoo that went about 35lbs.
The guys also fished with a couple flat-lines and managed some kings and a very respectable Black fin Tuna in between the bottom action.
As the sun was setting in 195 feet we had a few Mangrove Snapper bite and then it ended. We had a few more fishing hours available to us and the guys still haven’t eaten dinner so we decided to run into a shallower spot and try it for a bit. While we steamed, everyone had a nice hot dinner and a full belly power nap. We anchored up and instantly it was bent rods and smiling faces once again. We only fished a couple hours and the fish just bit at a steady pace but not too fast.
This trip really was one of the trips that makes me love fishing. They are not all that way and sometimes they are pretty bad. The anglers on board were experienced so they recognized that this trip was one of the special ones and really savored just about every moment.
We are planning a trip back out to 30 fathoms this weekend departing Friday April 7th. I think we have a spot open, if you have the time and the want to hopefully get in on this super action call the office at 727-935-5300 and tell Elena to squeeze you on..
Thanks for reading and fishing with the Gulfstar crew
Capt Rich