Jim VanAuken and Joe Ricci fished Estero Bay with me on Tuesday morning, along the mangrove shoreline from Barefoot Beach to Wiggins Pass. The redfish liked our live shrimp and we caught four of them, two keepers at 21 inches and 26 inches and two around 18 inches that we released. We also released snook to 17 inches.

Another cold front approached on Wednesday with winds and seas predicted to pick up about mid-morning. I advised my anglers that the bay might be a better choice than the gulf, with the potential for rough seas offshore. Sure enough, the winds picked up about 10:30 AM but we were safely and calmly fishing Estero Bay, which turned out to be pretty productive. Bill & Christine Henry and Tom and Liz Morris ended up with a 22 inch redfish, a keeper flounder, one keeper-sized mangrove snapper out of about a dozen we caught, and a half dozen keeper sheepshead.

Thursday’s backwater anglers Albert & Joan Tr0utmann, son Patrick and his girlfriend, Elvira Ruetimann, enjoyed Estero Bay with me on Thursday. Elvira caught all the keeper-sized fish, her biggest brag being a 25 inch redfish, and her three other keepers were all sheepshead. We released three additional redfish, all 17 inches, and a half dozen smaller sheepshead, all caught on shrimp.

Hank Sherowski and friends decided to fish offshore with me on Friday. In 44 feet out of New Pass, seas were still a little sloppy until later in the day when they got calmer, especially closer in to shore. We fished with shrimp and expected to catch snapper but we only caught one keeper snapper. We caught a half dozen mutton snapper but they were all just about an inch short of keeper size so we released those along with lots of grouper shorts. We made up the difference in whitebone porgies—the group caught 40 good sized ones. The guys also fought a couple of goliath grouper until they broke the lines.

My two Gulf trips for this week (Monday and Saturday) are detailed on the offshore forum report.

The photo shown is of angler Marshall Swain with a 28 inch redfish caught on shrimp and released on a recent inshore trip.