Captain's Weekly Fishing Report


Capt. Jeffri Durrance Fishing Report for 7/24/2011

The trout still continue to stretch the string around the grass flats throughout the bay. The fish are hitting a variety of artificials as well as live shrimp and white bait. Ladyfish, sheephead and a variety of other fish kept Michael & Conner Paul along with Brad and Dan of Indiana busy this week. Catch of the day goes to Brad with a bonnethead shark which put up a great fight on light tackle!

Kevin McPartland and sons Patrick & Sean of Kansas City, MO caught mangrove snapper, trout, flounder, ladyfish and redfish on live shrimp, DOA cal jigs and white bucktail spro jigs on Wednesday while fishing big pass and the Bird Key flats. Little brother Sean had the hot hand catching the most fish throughout the morning.

Ed Baradine along with wife Terry, and children Jen & Matt of Alanta, GA had a great day on the water this week. Fishing in Big Pass they caught snapper, jacks, sheephead and snook. On the flats they caught trout, ladyfish and redfish. They were using live shrimp, spro and CAL jigs. Matt had the big trout with a 21” fish and dad had the largest redfish at 19” along with a 10 pound jack. But catch of the day honors goes to Jen as she not only caught the most fish but boated a beautiful 37” snook! It was a lot of fun!

Offshore action continues to be good with grouper, snapper and little tuny still biting. Dave Robinson, Reed Giasion, Larry Leszynski, Brian Wells and Todd Parrish caught red grouper, scamp, porgies and vermillion snapper in 160 ft. Also caught and released were red snapper to 15 pounds. Catch of the day goes to Dave with a 10 pound scamp and a 15 pound red grouper! The fish were caught on a variety of cut and live baits including squid, sardines, pinfish, and cigar minnows.

The tarpon tournament wrapped up its most successful season in many years on Friday with the annual banquet. A record number of anglers (130) fished for five weeks catching and entering over 150 tarpon and accounted for even more DNA samples. Thank you to all who fished and supported this years tournament! PS: Tthe tarpon are still on the beach and biting!!!!!!!

Capt. Jim Klopfer Fishing Report for 7/24/2011

Only 2 charters this week. One trip of mine and one CBs trip this week, open Sun, Mon, Tues, Sat, and Sun plus a boat ride on Wed.

Fishing was decent this week, but not spectacular as we came off the full moon. Outgoing tides made catching bait a little more difficult. Speckled trout are abundant on the deep grass flats near Big Pass, but most of the fish are under the slot. The edges of grass at the north end of Siesta Key have been productive on the outgoing tide. Live shrimp and pilchards along with Cotee jigs and Gulp! Shrimp are producing. Along with trout, sharks, ladyfish, mangrove snapper, Spanish mackerel, bluefish, flounder, and sea bass are being caught on charters.

Ann Durham from Cincinnati and her sons Ryan (10) and Ben (16) caught a bunch of fish at Marker #5 early in the week. Plenty of trout were caught on live pilchards. Later in the week David Daniel and his 8 year old son Jacob from McLean, VA caught over 50 fish including trout, flounder, ladyfish, and snapper at the north end of Siesta Key on live shrimp.

Capt. Rick Grassett Fishing Report for 7/24/2011

Tarpon action was hot during the past week. Tarpon are happy and moving both north and south along our beaches. Fly anglers fishing with me on my Action Craft flats skiff the Snook Fin-Addict, out of CB’s Saltwater Outfitters on Siesta Key, had lots of shots sight casting to singles, doubles and small schools in the coastal gulf off Sarasota and had numerous bites and jumped fish during the past week. One of the most exciting scenarios was when tarpon corralled glass minnows into a bait ball and almost devoured the whole thing over a period of time as they repeatedly crashed through it gorging themselves on the fry. We had a couple of bites and jumped one tarpon out of the fray.

Sarasota winter resident, Mike Perez, fished a couple of days with me earlier in the week and was joined by Dean Hanneman, from Sarasota, on Wednesday. They had 3 bites and jumped 2 tarpon on flies. Dean fought one of the fish for more than 30 minutes and had the fish close to the boat before a knot in the fly line caused a break off.

Rusty Chinnis, from Longboat Key fished with me on Thursday and the action continued. We had 6 bites and jumped 3 fish. Tarpon were very aggressive that day, feeding on glass minnows and porpoising out of the water to eat our flies. Light conditions were poor and fish were deeper in the water column as we approached the end of the week and the action slowed on Friday and Saturday. We saw very few fish those days and didn’t have many decent shots.

Tarpon action should continue next week as we approach the new moon on July 30th. Strong out going tides in the afternoon should be best. Although tarpon numbers in the coastal gulf are thinning as some fish move to inside waters, they are aggressive.


CB's saltwater outfitters
1249 Stickney Point Road on Siesta Key
(at Stickney Point Bridge)
Sarasota, Florida 34242
941-349-4400
http://www.cbsoutfitters.com