Offshore fishing was pretty good this week. The days not covered here were spent in the backwater--details and pic are posted on the inshore forum...now for the offshore report...

Tuesday, I fished with Marc Miller and Dave Ihle at the artificial reefs off Bonita Beach. We had a good morning of fishing, despite rough seas, with a 24 inch gag grouper (photo below) Dave landed after it bit a live blue runner, seven keeper mangrove snapper, and two flounder 16 inches and 12 inches that Mark landed on shrimp. We released blue runners and gag shorts and a 25 inch goliath grouper.

Roy Bumstead and Jimmy Egan headed offshore with me to 53 feet out of New Pass on Friday. We caught ten nice yellowtail snapper to 17 inches, whitebone porgies to 16 inches—we kept six of those and threw back a bunch more—and a few keeper lane snapper. We released six sharpnose sharks, all about three feet long. We also released some gag grouper shorts and at least 150 red grouper shorts to 19 ¾ inches.

Sunday morning, a family group in town for a weekend wedding fished a catch-and-release trip with me about 17 miles west of New Pass. Jim Christ, son Bill, Bill’s uncle, John, and father-and-son team Brent and Chad Robinson collectively released about 80 fish with good variety including mangrove snapper, gag grouper, red grouper, grunts and whitebone porgies, all caught on live shrimp.