Redfish, snapper, shark, kings, AJs, bonito, mahi-sighting: SW FL-Bonita Beach

[fishbuster]

My Tuesday anglers wanted a full-day well offshore, and with 3-5 foot seas building to 4-6 out there, we decided it would be best to defer that trip until we have better conditions.

Wednesday, I headed out to 38 miles on a 260 heading from New Pass with anglers, Dr. Paul Martz and friend Christian. We used live shrimp, sardines and cut bait to catch a dozen yellowtail to 16 inches and a few mangrove snapper to 15 inches. We released a 40 inch kingfish, grouper shorts, with the largest gag just 1/2 inch short of keeper-size, triggerfish, jolthead and whitebone porgies, amberjacks to 22 inches, and three bonito to seven pounds (the bonito were caught on spoons.) We saw two mahi-mahi, each about 3 foot long, jump about 50 feet from the boat.

Thursday, I headed back out again about 37 miles from New Pass, this time with Mike Cole and friend Jason. We caught some nice yellowtail and lane snapper again and kept a few of those for the guy’s dinner, then went catch and release for the rest of the day. We released more snapper, porgies, grunts, triggerfish, bonito to eight pounds, a 26 inch king mackerel, and a 3 foot sharpnose shark. We used shrimp, sardines and squid for bait. The guys had a couple of big kingfish hooked, but had their lines broken before they were boated.

The inshore report and picture for this week is posted on the ishore forum.