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Hey guys, and welcome to the Northwest Florida Fishing Report presented by the Coastal Connection, Angelo de Paola with exp Realty. The first podcast to bring you the local inshore offshore and onshore fishing report from Pensacola to Panama City. Whether it’s good, bad, or ugly, this week’s show is brought to you by Great Days Outdoors Magazine.
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Alright guys, I’m your host, Joe Baya here this week and before we jump into the report, I’ve got a really cool opportunity for you. We’ve partnered with afco and they’re offering all of our listeners a free sun protection mask with any purchase of Afco products. Personally, I never hit the water without my Afco shorts. I’ve loved them for years, but they make a ton of great products. All you have to do to get your free sun protection mask is text the letters NWF FFR to 6 4 7 5 5 8 9 8 9 5. Again, N-W-F-F-R to 6 4 7 5 5 8 9 8 9 5 to subscribe to our email list and we’ll send you the afco promo via email. I’m cranking it up this week with my trustee, co-host and real estate extraordinaire, Angelo Dip. Angelo, welcome back man. Always good to have you
Man. I am loving this early April weather. It feels like it’s right on target, still crisp, little chill in the morning, mid seventies during the day. It’s a bluebird day today.
Yeah, people are definitely out and about. I’ve noticed the traffic increasing in front the house spring break is in full effect. I’ve noticed some young college kids having a little bit too much fun out there on the water is made for some good laughs out there. But first thing I want to know whenever April 1st rolls around is what’s going on on the beach, what’s going on with the Pompano? Are they running yet? We had had some good reports up to this point, but from what I had been hearing it’s been mostly resident fish. So let’s go check in with Weldon Hall fishing out of the Destin area, sand Flea Outfitters and see if the run has begun. Weldon, what’s going on man? Are the Pompano doing their thing?
They definitely are. They’re here. They’re starting to show up in good numbers for sure on the beach and not just the resident fish like you were saying. These are our migrators, the real silver ones. They’re real aggressive. A lot of fun to catch on the beach, man. So we’re getting into the thick of it now.
That’s good to hear man. Really good to hear. So what’s the key right now when you’ve got these migrating fish moving through? I know you can catch a lot of fish fast. Are there any keys? Do you need to be there super early? Is there a time of day, a certain tide we need to work off of or a special bait that’s making the difference?
Oh, nothing real crazy, just your normal, normal surface and kind of rules of thumb apply right now, find you some moving water and whether that be an incoming or outgoing tide, find you a likely spot on the beach and hit as many of those spots as you can until you find some fish and you can stay on them. Bases have kind of varied man. Earlier, end of tail, end of last month there we were catching most of the fish on shrimp bait and shrimp fish bites and those types of things and sand fleas were real hard to come by the sand fleas are starting to become more and more prevalent in the surf and the fish has kind of switched over to sand fleas, at least for me. There’s been a couple of days where we couldn’t get on a bite on nothing but a live sand. There are some days where they’ve been pretty hard to come by though, but those seem to be the days when they want ’em is when it’s the only thing on the beach or they’re hard to find so you just kind of hunt and peck around for those if you need them, but that’s just what’s going on, just figuring out what bait they want that day and what kind of spots they’re relating to depending on the tide you’re in
Weld and when the sand flee show up like this, I mean of course that’s a primo bait. Do you do anything different with your fish bites selection? Do you go to a different color or a different flavor or do you feel like if the sand fleas are available you got to go get sand fleas?
I mean if sand fleas are available, I’m going to try to get as many as I can to fish with those starting off with and then some days it just doesn’t matter. They’ll bite thing or anything to put out there, but I always try to go with a combo too. If I’m fishing a lot of fleas man, I like to cut me up a little piece of the white and orange Sam flea fish bites and put it on there, serves twofolds. I got two pieces of bait on my hook so in case I lose my flea or something, I still have bait. It helps keep that Sam flea on my hook and that bright orange color puts a little bit more of a traction in the water I think. So it can help you out a lot. Just double up on those. Don’t just limit yourself to one bait and just don’t go to the beach and say I’m only going to fish S there or I’m only going to fish shrimp or whatever. You kind of take each day as it comes and figure out what they’re really hitting on that.
You mentioned the orange and white sand flea fish bites. I love that color combo with a sand flea because it does, it looks like a little egg sack. If you’ve ever seen a female sand flea with that egg sack, it looks just like it. The color combination is great. Are you doing anything with your beads or your floats right now? That seems to matter.
Just taking in the water clarity and the conditions of my float selection. When we got the clean air water, smaller surface and stuff, I like to use lighter colors, hot pink, white works real well now. The water colors, you get that little dirtier sier, bigger surf days. I like to use a lot of orange star floats. They haven’t been really on a pattern per se where they’re hitting one float over the other. I just kind of put out what I think is going to work on that day and try to narrow it down from there. But for the most part I just kind of picked that on my water, my water conditions and clarity. Well
Weldon, are you getting any other incidental catches other than just the Pompano right now? Any permit, red fish, whiting, any drum or anything?
Yeah, last week we got into quite a few little puppy drums, black drum on the beach. That was fun. They tend to hang out a lot on those dirtier, bigger surf days. That’s when they really get fired up and you kind of load up on them. There’s a lots of whining on the beach. We’ve caught a few here and there. Nothing real big, no massive catches of those. I imagine there’s still red fish on the beach. We haven’t been targeting them really right this time, but I really haven’t any incidents or catches of those either. But all the usual suspects are out there. This is kind of the year when the beach comes alive and there’s kind of a lot of different options you can fish for, whether it be redfish, your drum species or Pompano, what have
You. Well end of this week we’re going to have a lot of wind today it’s blowing pretty hard, mostly out of the west, kind of a little north or west northwest. You mentioned those surf conditions. What does it take right now? We’ve had a bunch of good surf days last week or so. What does it take right now to get your set rigs held in place? Are you able to get it done with three ounce, four ounce? Are you having to go heavier?
No, just been using three or four ounce sputniks, just kind of basing the size I’m using on the tackle. Of course my bigger rods, I use the bigger weights, my smaller shorter rods. We’ve been using the three, three and a half ounce weights. Those seem to be holding pretty well. They haven’t really encountered a whole lot of days where we needed anything bigger and in my experience, most of the time you get over four or five ounces, it’s pretty much two rough to fish anyways.
I like that. So basically what you’re telling me is if I got a four ounce out there and I can’t hold it in place, I can just stop and start drinking beer.
Of course,
Save myself the energy. Alright, I’m down with that plan. What’s the water temp doing? We had a couple of days last week where I would call it hot, some good 80 degree temperatures. I was slightly uncomfortable outside. Did that do much to get those water temps up?
Yeah, last week, a couple days I found it to be almost 70 degrees in the surf. It was 69 there. It’s kind of cooled off in the last few days. It’s hovering right around 67, 68 mark right around here in Destin, Okaloosa Island, so it’s definitely right there in the prime range there for Pompanos. They’re here
Once you start getting water temps like that and then I saw we’re going to be getting some temperatures back down into the forties overnight. Do you find in years past that those cool downs will affect the water temperature enough to shut down the bite in the days after a front or once they start moving or are they here to stay?
I think they’re still here on the beach. I just think they get a little bit harder to catch after a front and the water temperature drops. I need to move a little bit deeper and don’t do quite the normal things that we’re used to. They kind of head out a little bit deeper and sometimes it can just shut ’em off for a day or two depending on what kind of front and how much variance you did get in the temperature. So just kind of a situation by situation basis when it comes to that, but there’s definitely instances where it can show off the bite or slow it down a lot when these temperatures cool down like that during the middle of spring,
Well then it’s spring break unless you’re going to bed at 8:00 AM nobody wants to wake up at five to go, at least not me. I mean there’s probably people that are more mad at ’em than me.
You meant to say 8:00 PM but a lot of people are going to bed at 8:00 AM Angela. Yeah,
Well yeah, up at 8:00 AM still, it may be a good time to go catch a Pompano, but is this an early morning thing, an afternoon thing or can I just go out there with my swinger a couple cold pops and throw a couple set rigs and catch some Pompano whenever I randomly feel like it?
Yeah, yeah, I mean as long as the conditions on the beach are pretty good, you’ve got some decent surf and some tide movement, they’ll bite it all day long, especially this time of year they’re coming down the beach hungry, they’re looking for food to eat so they’ll let, they’ll feed all day long. The only kind of instance that I see the time of day this time of year kind of plays into it is depending on the moon phase, and I don’t spend a whole lot of time this, but one thing I do kind of coincidental or incidental that I’ve noticed over the years is with a full moon, I feel like in a clear full moon night they’ll feed all night and they’ll shut off after the first couple hours of light and then they’ll get hungry again about midday and they’ll shut off after a couple hours and then you’ll pick up that feeding, get it right then in the last couple of hours of light. That’s the only time really I kind of focus on time of day is if I have a moon phase that kind of coincides with that, that makes me feel like they’re going to be feeding earlier or late.
Well no, I’m glad to hear that we’ve got fish migrating through. I’ve always felt like this time of year is it’s just a matter of putting in your time, right? You got to be there. It could happen just about any time of day, but that being said, there has to be some keys to success that you’ve found in the last week or so. So to wrap the report up this week, what do you want to leave everybody with a tip?
Well, one thing that we’ve kind of ran into this last week or so is two weeks is with our rougher surf and some of these Rainier days, we’ve had some dirty surf conditions to deal with and we’ve kind of had to put together our hunt down, I should say a color change or a color break in the water that’s close enough to us that we could actually cast to. And it seems like one of those dirty days in the surf in the early spring we have the bigger surf and as it gets dirty you’ll have a tide line or a color change line in the surf and sometimes it’s way out and it’ll kind of put the fish where you’re not normally looking for ’em on those sandbars and stuff sand. So we had to adapt and kind look for a different type of structure versus something on the sandbar.
Some days we’ve been kind of looking for just a color change in the surf that we could cast a bait to and on those days it seems like that’s the only place we could catch fish at is if we find a color break we could get a bait to and they would kind of all be right on that color break between the dirty water and that incoming or outgoing cleaner water. So that’s been the key on those rougher days to put them them together. And other than that, man, just this time of year, get out and put your time in. They’re here, so go get them.
Finding those color breaks and finding those spots on the beach. Reading the beach to me has always been the most challenging part of surf fishing. The good thing about surf fishing is you can take it as serious as you want to. You can make it just a relaxing day on the beach with a family with a couple of rides out and what happens happens or you can really get into it. I find that the best way if you really want to get into it and you really want to read the beach and learn how to do it, is to go with somebody who already knows how. Ask them the questions out there, let them point these things out when you both have polarized sunglasses on and you’re both standing right there and can look at things. So if folks want to get up with you, Weldon, put together a surf fishing charter maybe to get more knowledge about how to do this or if they just want to have that relaxing day and want to rinse some surf fishing gear, go out with their family, kind of do it on their terms at their condo at spring break, what’s the best way to get in touch with you
Man? Just get up on our website. It’s destin surf fishing.com.
Angelo, you got to get out there man. You going to get the kids out there and get ’em on the beach? Get ’em after these Pompano
Man. Probably not. No.
Your kids, they’re already advanced past the easy stuff. They’re ready to catch billfish and
I’ve got one that’s just itching. We told her if she would take Spanish lessons and learn Spanish, we’d take her to Costa Rica, so now we’re doing Spanish lessons that she is like all about it, so I’m glad somebody will be able to talk to the locals.
Yeah,
I like the speckle trout fishing better. They seem to bite more. I’ve never been on a white hot pompano bite.
It’s fun when you get all those rods out and they’re coming through and about as fast as you can get one in and get abated and you’re reeling one in, you see the other one hitting and it can be really awesome, but I understand where you’re coming from. I have been on that good bite. I’m that way with dove hunting. Everybody loves dove hunting and I know it’s the social aspect of it, but I’ve just never been on a real barn burner of a dove hunt, so it’s always just been sitting on the edge of a hot field staring at the sky and beach fishing can be that way too. The other thing is if you really enjoy fishing, you want to have a rod in your hand and be doing something, you’re not doing that most of the time. If it’s slow, you’re just staring at the rod tips so I can definitely understand that.
Well the good news is you don’t have to go surf fishing. You can go offshore fishing or inshore fishing. We’ve got those reports coming back up. We’re going to take a quick break and get the offshore report next out of Panama City. Y’all stick around. This week’s show is brought to you by Admiral Shellfish. Admiral Shellfish Oysters are available by the dozen add bond Seur Fisheries in Bon Secour, Alabama from a simple nutrient dense appetizer at home or a shucking party with friends Admiral Oysters will steal the show. Call 2 5 1 9 4 9 7 4 1 1 for pricing and availability and you can follow their adventures on Instagram at Admiral Shellfish Co. And also brought to you by Killer Dock. I hadn’t even realized how bad it was. I was cleaning fish on rotten wood and after cleaning just a few fish, I was filthy and I had a sunburn. I tried wearing the hat but it just couldn’t keep me cool. And how was I supposed to clean fish without getting messy? Killer Doc brings the upgrade not only that will keep me cool and clean, but it will make being on my dock enjoyable again. Killer doc combines durability, function and design to uniquely upgrade your entire dock experience. Visit killer doc.com to check out the greatest fish cleaning stations known to mankind. Alright, Angelo, next report’s an offshore report out of Panama City with Captain Harris Scruggs, team Aquatic and Angelo, you got to go fishing this past Monday. How’d you guys do?
I mean we blistered. We were letting trigger fish go. They were everywhere. The B liner was a little slow but I mean it was still a nice mess of fish and it is just a typical bottom bumping trip to me. I mean I think we had, it’s tough. I grew up rating everything, Hey, did we get a limit of our B liners and our trigger fish and all that and so in regards of did we come back, we had three one gallon bags of trigger fish and bee liner. It was awesome.
Yeah, some good fresh fish.
It was a great way to spend eight hours with some buddies.
That’s the over there. Y’all fishing out of Orange Beach I assume? Yep. Captain Harris. What are things like out of Panama City? Are you seeing anything different on the, I call it the clean water side of things? No,
No, it’s been phenomenal fishing, like Angela said, the trigger fish and the vermilion snapper bite have been phenomenally. We’ve been getting close to our limit or our limit. Almost every trip on six hours, eight hours have been going on having to fight through a lot of smaller triggers, the 14 to 14 and three quarters to find our fixer, so keepers and then, but the Vermillion snapper bites been pretty much just find a good show and there
You’ve got to have on a charter boat you kind of have to have a rod and reel setup that does a lot of things. Well, maybe it’s not the exact perfect setup for every single scenario you’re in, but those rods have to go double duty quite a lot. I would imagine if you were going to set up a bottom fishing rod specifically for these aggregate fish we’re talking bee liners trigger fish, your red porkies, white snappers, whatever you want to call ’em, all the other fish, not your grouper, not your red snapper, what would you like out of that rod? I’ve played with some different rod and reel setups and what I found a lot of times is that if you get something that’s got a good sensitive tip where you can really feel those little subtle bites, sometimes it doesn’t feel like there’s enough backbone to bury that hookup. Good. What do you
Like? What we use on my boat is a six foot 30 to, I think it’s a 30 to 60 pound half hitch custom. They’re custom charter classic, which is a glass rod or hollow glass rod and it’s got the spring guides on it and the six foot, I think it’s a medium heavy with just the four halt, the red face, four aught on it with 60 pound mono and that really can handle anything from trolling for Spanish or king mackerel or what have you to bottom fishing for your white snapper or your vermilion snapper and your trigger fish. But I’ve also caught some big snappers and nice groupers using that same system. Now obviously if you’re doing that in targeting that stuff, you’re going to want to beef it up a little bit with maybe a six alt, A six six rod, but that six foot half hitch custom and then with a red face four alt and the 60 pound mono not braided because you don’t have to stretch I think is the ticket, especially when you’re dealing with customers that are trying to reel the reel as fast as they can.
Right. Well you mentioned the mono versus braid, so you want that stretch. You like that stretch?
I do like that stretch. It seems like when you do hook, when you are fishing a one hook and with snapper you have a lady angler that doesn’t want hold a six au or a young person doesn’t have the strength to hold a big heavy six aut, you can give them that four aut and they can pull on it as hard as they want to and that fish has a little bit more bungee to him when he makes that run versus braid where when he makes that run, if you don’t have your drags set perfect and you’re knots tied perfect, then you run a chance of losing that 15 to 20 pounds snap. Or when he makes a run on one of those rods, it’s just going to pop the line. But I like the motto for the stretch with the right drag setting obviously seems to work very well for us,
So you get mono but you’re going with a little heavier blank because you’ve got the stretch in the mono so you don’t need that rod to be as limber. That makes sense. I guess if you were going to go braid, you would go with the more limber rod?
Yeah, you could go with a more limber rod, but also because of the ones I’m talking about, they do have a pretty fast tip. It’s not a very narrow tip. It’s still got some backbone like you said, up a pretty good piece on the rod, but it has a very good tip. You can see the bite. It still vibrates and bounces when those B liners and triggers bite, but also because we use 12 ounce lids, I mean if you’re holding a Torres out there that’s six six with a pencil big as a pencil on the end of it or smaller with that real fast action tip and you put a 12 ounce lead and fire it down 120 feet, a lot of that light tip is going to be absorbed by that 12 ounce lead and harder to feel those bites in my opinion.
Yeah, that’s very true. If
You do like that theres or any kind of light jigging rod on your braid and you’re doing that kind of fishing drop into a six ounce or an eight ounce spank lead or whatever kind of rig you’re running, we’re talking about a chicken rig with lead on the bottom go into a six ounce or an eight ounce, especially if you’re fishing on a boat, most people that are listening are that are one or two people on a 25 foot center console. You don’t have to worry about fishing so vertical that you don’t tangle up to the person two feet to your right. So we run those heavy ledges to keep everything vertical, but you can’t do that with a limber rod
And it’s a lot easier to untangle a 60 pound mono than it is 60 pound braid.
That’s
Exactly what I was thinking. I mean I was like backlashes aren’t as big of a deal tangles and I mean it’s just like you get a big tangle, you get three guys wrapped up with a bunch of braid. I mean it’s just dangerous quite honestly.
And I mean I never tangle on my boat. Angela, I’m sure you have that problem on yours so I could understand why you’d want a fish mono.
No, I mean it’s true man. It’s a lot easier to, there’s been a whole lot of fish die to monofilament before braid became popular. Braid certainly has its uses, but mono is still great in the right applications and I like what you said there, KA, you’re talking about matching the rod to the mono and when you go to fish in those lighter setups, if that’s your thing and you want that braid for that sensitivity and you want that terres type setup like you’re talking about, well maybe you pick a day where you don’t have a lot of current and you can fish up in the column or you can get away with a six ounce lead and get it to where you need to get it to. Speaking of that, what’s the holdup been like out there this week? Have you guys been, Angela was talking about running 35 miles that y’all been staying in pretty close, running shorter trips and what’s the current been like?
The holdup has been great. We had some really good weather through the weekend. It was nice and calm and just a nice steady hold up. Just enough breeze where you had something to hold up into with the current. Not hard at all. We were facing back east and then what did you ask me the other one you asked me? I’m
Just asking if you guys have been staying inside mostly or if you’ve been making some runs.
Yeah, so 18 miles, 16 to 18 miles has been the magic number for us. You’re running past that, you’re getting that a hundred feet to 115 feet has seemed to be really, really good.
I’m looking forward. My boys, they’re starting to get older. I’ve got a 6-year-old and a 3-year-old and I’m right on the edge is starting to take ’em out offshore, not the three-year-old, but the six-year-old and one of the first things I’m going to expose them to is to do a little Spanish macro fishing. It’s usually a lot of activity involved with that. You can do it on rougher days, you can do it just about any day. Have you been seeing a lot of Spanish macro around the past and y’all catching plenty of those? Yeah,
The Spanish macro bite finally started to pick up my last Wednesday pretty good and was really good through Sunday and then we had that little cloudy, rainy weather kind of come through and they kind of slowed down a little bit and so hopefully with this another little, I think we’re supposed to have another cold front come through tonight or tomorrow, which is probably also going to maybe slow ’em down a little bit, but hopefully we stick back to the spring pattern after this and then it’s going to continually get better for the next two weeks and then obviously they’ll be moving on.
Angelo, that was one of the first fish I was exposed to what I would call an offshore fish. I mean I know we catch those fish inside, but I felt like we were offshore. I can remember going out and catching Spanish mackerel and a few Bonita and man, I thought it was the best thing ever. One of the mindsets I’ve been trying to get myself back into with my kids is to not put my snobby fishing experiences on them, let them experience some of the same stuff. What have you done with your kids? Have you found that they love that just as much as anything? Dude,
We love Spanish mackerel, fishing, they run hard. You’re going to catch some king mackerel when you’re out there doing it and it’s not like it’s pretty steady. Once summer gets here it’s easy fishing, so that’s a majority of what I do with my kids because the speckle trout fishing where I’m at, it’s just not that good and so it’s high target and then when we’re done, we go to the beach and build sandcastles. It’s great.
Captain Harris, if folks want to go out and do some Spanish Mac trolling, what’s your go-to setup that you just feel super confident in?
Most of the time we are just running the small Clark Spoon. I’m not sure what number it is, it’s the smallest one they make, which is an inch and a quarter inch and a half long and then we’re running 30 pound regular monofilament and about a 10 foot stretch or 10 foot liter, 10 to 15 feet. I mean you can make ’em longer, sometimes it makes a difference, sometimes it doesn’t, but anywhere 10 to 15 feet and then with a swivel, with a barrel swivel and then we run four different lead sizes. We run an eight ounce, we run a six ounce, we run a four ounce and two ounce heaviest, closest and obviously so on and so forth to the line out. But we run mostly spoons just for the safety purposes versus the Christmas trees or the straw rigs or whatever you want to call ’em. Those are very, very, very good when the Spanish are thick, catch three or four at a time, but you’re also, you’re taking multiple hooks when you’re bringing ’em in the boat with multiple people in the back deck, so we stick to the Clark spoon. We know with the leader and the weight we can catch plenty like that.
When you’re trolling Clark spoons, what’s your rule of thumb for setting your baits back? Do you find that it matters? Can you just put ’em out or do you mentioned the different lead sizes for staggering your baits. I mean do you mix that up at all? Do you find that it matters?
The only time it matters is depending on how tight of a turns we’re having to make, how crowded we are if we’re the only boat there and we’re going to go down the backside of Shell Island because the Gulf sl calm and an afternoon trip and tide’s going out to the Spanish if pushed out into our, we catch a lot of Spanish in the bay on incoming tide because we have such a big base system, it’s deep channels and grass flats and sand drop-offs, so we do a lot of Spanish fishing in the bay, but it gets very crowded because everybody’s working the same flats and edges and especially when you’re in a bigger boat like ours, you are worried about drafts so you have to kind of hold your line and obviously the smaller boats, they can get up in that four or five feet of water and catch ’em where we have to stay in six to eight feet of water just to be on the safe side.
But when you get a lot of boats, I have my mate run ’em a little closer just so I can make tight turns. Nobody’s running our lines over, that kind of thing, but like I said, if we’re going down the island in the afternoon and there’s not a boat around, I mean having ’em set back further seems to work pretty good, getting them away from the boat. But if they’re biting, they’re biting, whether it’s in the prop wash or it’s 60 feet. But a good rule of thumb when you’re teaching a new mate how to do this with your heavier lead close, you always start putting your long line out first. Just like blue water trolling and then you could do 20 seconds, 15 seconds, 10 seconds, five seconds, and that way bringing ’em back towards the boat. That way every time you reel one in, that’s the heavy lead. All right, five seconds, pitch it out. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Put it in gear, put it in. Rod ho,
Captain Harris, what’s a good trolling speed
For Spanish Mac? I like just in clutch for us, which is about five and a half knots is about what we do in Clutch and that’s usually what we run in. We might bump it up depending on if we’re working against the current or something around our pass system, but yeah, five and a half to six knots, six and a half knots on the max because the faster you go, obviously the more drag you have to the lead or fish higher. So I like to slow it down and five nots, you have plenty of speed to make the Clark spoon do what it’s supposed to do.
One of the things that’s always given me some anxiety and I always get onto my dad, Angela, I don’t know if your dad’s like this, maybe it’s a generational thing, but he just fishes too damn close to everybody. I’m like, dad will just roll up in there. I’m like, you are too close. Come on dad, back up a little bit. We’re fine. I’m just like, you’re making me not feel good. But gat, when you’re out there fishing for Spanish mackerel, a lot of times you’re one of the armada, there’s got to be some etiquette there. What would you like people to know if they’re out there trying to get involved in this and there’s plenty of fish for everybody, but what’s a good rule of thumb? What do you try to do so that you’re not over top of somebody, you’re not running over lines, you’re just not making people feel uncomfortable or from a safety aspect, if somebody loses power, you would want to have enough time to react to them and vice versa.
Yeah, I mean just paying attention. So the big thing is especially, and I’m speaking for charter boats here we are all on the VHF channel talking to each other so that we kind of know, hey, so-and-so I’m going to pass you on your starboard side right here if you’re kind of going at each other working down a flat, but if you don’t know what channel to be on or you don’t want to talk on the radio, just watch what the other boats are doing. If you see those big charter boats or recreational boats or whatever and they’re kind of making a block wise circle in an area working the flat go out into the channel, left hand turn going down a half mile, then making that turn back. Don’t hop in there with ’em, give them space behind ’em and space in front of ’em and do that same thing. Don’t hop in and then or try to go backwards against the grain or make a turn early and then try to cut somebody off because that’s where you caught ’em or just try to follow the path everybody’s doing. It usually works better that way doing the same thing versus a bunch of people perpendicular and across your path or going against you and you’re having to know are they going to go right, am I going to go right, that’s my tip.
Yeah, absolutely. Just kind of pay attention and fall in line, do what the crowd’s doing. We’re talking about Spanish macro fishing and I’m thinking about my kids. Of course that’s kind of how one of the early, early exposures I had to fishing in the golf, but one of the things I’ve noticed about my boys is I’ve always got some big fish on my mind or I’m going to do some technical kind of fishing, throwing some artificial lure or something like that and those two suckers, they’re just happy to go catch pin fish and fill the bait well, and I want to let ’em do it. They love it and heck, it puts bait in the box, but what’s the bait situation like out there, man? Are y y’all having any cigar? Min is showing up. Are you able to sabi any bait up or do the bait boats have bait Right now
Our bait boats have not started catching any yet. I have not personally seen any bait schools of herring or cigar has show up. They have been catching a fuel of the smaller hard tails in the Spanish, so I would imagine that around the buoys and stuff on an outgoing tie, there’ll be some hard tails started to show up and obviously the herring and the cigar min is they’re not far behind, but there’ll be some hard tails starting to show up here pretty thick in the next two
Weeks. Well it’s good to hear the bottom fish and bite is strong. I imagine that’s going to continue on. We got snapper fishing right around the corner. Things are just going to get better from here. If folks want to get up with you there in Panama City when they’re in town or put together a trip, come down and see you and go fishing, what’s the best way to get in contact with you guys? Check out all the different types of trips you offer and put something together. I imagine if people aren’t thinking about Snapper season right now, I would imagine they need to be you finding yourself booking up pretty quick usually.
Yeah, we’ve started to book some trips. We still have plenty of openings for return clients or new clients. We’d love to carry ’em and they can reach us@teamaquaticcharters.com or on Facebook and Instagram and then they can also reach out to me at 8 5 0 5 3 2 5 4 5 8 and we can get ’em set up.
Well, captain Harris, it’s always good deep diving on some of the finer aspects of getting out in the Gulf and going fishing. Y’all stay safe out there man. Thanks for the report.
Alright, you too,
Angela. I was looking at offshore boats the other day. I’m really excited about getting my boys out there. I’m hoping, I don’t know if other parents are this way. I’ve tried not to put what I like to do onto my boys and put too much of an expectation on them, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping that they liked to go out in the golf and go fishing and I always worry about that. I think I’m real self-conscious about that. I don’t want to burn ’em out. I want ’em to have a good experience. How do your kids fishing and have you learned anything so far about getting ’em out there and making sure they have a good time?
What I’ve found, at least with my kids is they kind of just want to do whatever I’m doing. So they are itching to go offshore and I’ve like the oldest one, she just turned eight, so we went out, she caught her first Wahoo last year. She’s caught a dolphin. We’ve caught plenty of king mackerel and Spanish mackerel, just kind of fishing around. She’s caught big red fish off my dad’s dock, so she is all in it. My youngest one is just now asking about going, so I’m like, I just kind of like if you want to go, great and I think it’s just got to be target rich. In the beginning we were fishing for pen fish and stuff off the dock. Now we’re regularly venturing out and going and catching Spanish and kings and quite honestly a five pound Bonita, a 20 pound king mackerel, a three pound Spanish for a five to 6-year-old is about all I just watched. That’s all they can handle on their own, like wahoo, she’s just cranking a reel in a rod holder. She likes to get the Instagram moment, which it is funny, even at that age they’re like, let’s get a picture of this thing. So I just think they’re all different. She’s fine going 40 miles out and getting beat up. The other one he is like needs an iPad and starlink and everything else.
I always wonder about that because I remember not doing well, not catching fish and not killing a Turkey or killing a deer that made me want to go worse and so I kind of struggle with that. Is the goal here to get ’em to catch in as fast as possible or is it to let ’em struggle a little bit and not intentionally struggle, but it’s okay if you struggle or do you feel like those first few trips just need to be bend the pole, make sure they’re catching something, even if it’s a pin fish or what do you think on that? Is it okay to let ’em struggle?
I think you can struggle, right? And if you’re fishing close to the beach, you struggle for an hour or two. We’ve had those trips like, oh, we fish two hours, we caught a lady fish and then we just go build sandcastles, go back on the inside and build sandcastles. But everybody’s kid’s different. I’ve got a friend who their 3-year-old goes out all day deep dropping and trolling for big game fish. So I just think it’s like whatever you want to get ’em into, they’re just into doing whatever you’re doing when they’re young it seems like.
Yeah, well being out on the water man, especially with your family, I think that that is what draws so many people to the coast. Being able to have, if you’re lucky enough to be able to have a waterfront property where you can go put a boat in the water at a moment’s notice or be close enough where dropping a boat in the water at the ramp isn’t that big of a deal, that’s such a nice feature. I think that’s why so many people are attracted to this stretch of coastline between Dolphin Island and Panama City is those experiences, those memories, I remember that growing up. I think that’s what a lot of today’s working parents or even grandparents want to provide for their family. So what’s been going on with the real estate market? I mean we’re hearing a lot in the news about this, that and the other, what’s actually happening, boots on the ground. I
Mean the data says this says that we’re seeing significantly less transactions that than we saw last year. The average sales price for most, at least in that Florida panhandle, like average sales price in Petito key up almost 13%. Pensacola Beach up almost 30% destined up almost 32%, 30 a down 16% on the average, but down only 3.45 on the median sale price. Panama City down almost 5% on the average, down almost 5% on the median sales price days on market all up. But look, I would say this, we’re coming off Covid coming off some crazy numbers and especially where you see an average sales price down almost 17% in 30 A in that market, that could be the difference of a couple 15 or 20 million houses not selling. I just don’t read a whole lot into that and I think the reason we’re seeing less total transactions this year is there’s just less properties to buy. I believe that there’s what people are wanting, there’s just not a lot available.
Yeah, I can only go back to my most recent experience, but we did not list our house until we had another house under contract. So it was just a one-on-one kind of deal. We didn’t list it and pray and then go figure out what we were doing with transactions. Being down is inventory up from where it was a year ago and his inventory. But is inventory still down from what you would call normal or is it getting close to normal?
We’re down about 15% from what we would call normal. I feel like over the next 12 to 24 months we’ll slowly see inventory build up. I think last year what happened for a lot of people is they sat on the sidelines and they waited, our interest rates going to go down, our price is going to go down. Well, none of that really happened and so you’re seeing those sorts of people come into the market and where I think where we’re really seeing a little disconnect and where there’s downward some downward pressure and it’s probably some part of the reason you’re seeing transaction counts high. If you bought a house just two years ago or a condo just two years ago, the prices were much lower than they were now than they are now and the interest rates were way lower than what they are now.
So somebody purchasing a property then that was going to use it as an investment, it still financially works for them. Well, like investment property interest rates, you got to go get a loan on that unless you’re putting 25 to 40% down, those interest rates are up in the eights. So higher insurance costs, higher interest rates and the fact that prices aren’t really going down on that, and I’ve not had anybody call me and say, Hey Angelo, we have to sell. We’re in a bad financial position. I figured if that was the case, I’d at least gotten one of those calls. Most of the calls are like, I would sell phone if I could get this number. So I think that’s the scenario. I think the people that have lots of money or still buying, that’s one thing that I’ve noticed just personally, our price point on our own transactions are up a couple hundred thousand dollars and a lot more of those are like to me truly second homes with a sprinkling of investment and a sprinkling of primary.
So I think the people that have expendable income at a great amounts are still doing stuff and the reason that is, and we’re seeing a lot of those guys finance it because even though interest rates are up, I mean even the money markets are up, so the actual spread in what you’re paying in interest really doesn’t look, it may even for a lot of people that have multiples of millions in their bank account or in their investment account, it’s way better for them to go finance and seeing more of that than we have in the
Past. So I understand what you’re saying there is if you’re borrowing it 7.75%, but you’re getting 5.25% in your money market account, then the spread right there is two point half percent. So the cost of your money really is like 2.5% plus you get the deductibility of that home interest in some cases. So it may even be less than that, whereas go back three years when interest rates were maybe at three and a 5%, what was a money market paying at that point, like 0.25%. So they’re actually doing better now with interest rates being higher. So with everything you just said before we jump into this inshore report, what’s your message to buyers? What’s your message to sellers? April of 2024?
I think if you’re looking to make a move, you’re looking to move up, your financial situation has changed, put your house on the market. Actually we’ve been listing a little bit high, we’ve been negotiating well and I think that at this point it is so important to choose very carefully the real estate agent you’re going to use for your transaction and the reason being is this. When I see transaction counts in some cases close down, close to 60%, there are a lot of desperate realtors out there. I’m seeing it even while we’re negotiating how weak they are at negotiating right now. It’s because they’re just negotiating to get a deal done and they’re not negotiating vigorously on your half whether you’re a buyer or a seller. It’s amazing what we’re able to do for our buyers right now, and it’s equally as amazing how hard we’re able to negotiate for our sellers.
Even stuff for us that sat on the market because we’ve put it on the market in October or September last year, that’s just now getting offers. We’re closing that stuff. Most of it close to full list. So if you’re a seller, buy or seller, choose carefully who you’re interviewing, interview somebody, make a decision based off of you want somebody that’s doing some production right now, so they’re going to work very well on your behalf. The other thing is if you’re a seller, our main selling season on the Gulf Coast, march to about June, once June gets here, July is get rid of kids ready for school. August is school, September’s football later in the falls hunting and then holiday season, not saying you can’t sell property. Then there’s just a lot less buyers. To me, a fairly even market, the main differentiator is how good somebody can negotiate for you.
The time is now, I’ll say working with you guys last year, the fact that you have a team there, it is not just Angelo pushing all the buttons. You’ve got a really good team that helps you and being confident in your price when you’re selling and being confident in what a property’s worth when you’re buying, that helps so much with being able to negotiate correctly because if you know what a property’s worth, you know what you should be willing to pay for it and vice versa. If you list correctly, there’s no real reason to negotiate. You know what it’s worth. You guys did a great job of that for me, helping me with selling my property and buying the property we’re in now. Definitely appreciated that. Definitely appreciate you helping me host this fishing report from time to time. Let’s take another break and we’re going to come back and get that final inshore report.
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No matter if you’re running a diesel in your boat, tractor or truck test calibration can help you. Contact them at 8 2 2 0 0 5 7 or visit them online at test calibration diesel and turbo.com. Well, Angelo, as these things go, we had an intro report lined up for you guys today and just had some unexpected circumstances with that report. We’re not going to be able to bring it to you today, but rather than doing nothing for folks that are willing to make the run, talking with butch theory over at the Alabama Saltwater Fish report, he’s got a great report from over a little bit further to the west, kind of off for river wahoo bite’s been strong. There’s been a lot of fish biting over there, so if you’re willing to make the run, check out this report and on the inshore side of things, we will be back next week with a normal inshore report. Angelo, it’s always fun hosting with you, man. I hate we didn’t get to get that third report, but we had some good stuff in here. What was your big takeaway from today?
Man? I think for me, like we talked about it earlier, there’s a lot of anticipation with the fishing time of year. It’s starting to warm up. The Spanish mackerel are starting to show up along the panhandle. I saw a couple of these inshore guides come in with some Spanish the other day. So my takeaway is in the next two weeks we’re going to have cigar mins and herring and people are going to be starting to catch King Mackall right about April 15th, 18th. That really starts to pick up. And so I think that in the meantime, the wahoo are still biting offshore. The blue marlin bite’s been great, swordfish and tuna from what I hear and what I see just looking out my window when those guys come in, that bite’s been good and it’ll just all kick off. It’s just, heck, it’s the cycle of life.
Yeah, we want it to be here, but it’s getting here. There’s a few bright spots that have shown up, like talking with Weldon earlier, hearing about those migrate and Pompano coming through, talking with Captain Harris and the bottom fishing’s good, but you can’t keep everything yet. You can’t target everything yet. It’s almost here. We’re almost here and just got to wait a little bit longer. Make sure you go through your stuff, make sure your boat’s ready, go run it a few times, catch a few bee liners and trigger fish. Make sure everything works because here, pretty soon it’s going to be hot and heavy.
Hey, you know what? You bring up a good point right now. It’s actually a little late, but if you hadn’t done it, get your rod reels checked out, get your line checked out. If you got to repo anything, go ahead and do it. I mean, go ahead and get your batteries checked out. I’m having all that stuff done this week. I planned a month ago and I just, now the guys just now getting to it. So don’t let your first fishing trip with your kids this year be a disaster. Batteries not work. Whatever. Right.
Dad, if you’re listening to dad, what Angela is saying is like you should cut off the rigs you tied on last year. Those knots are no longer good anymore. You should cut those off and retie them as a start. Here’s a starting point for you. No, it is true, man. I mean, your stuff’s going to break when it’s been sitting up. You may want to do a couple of dry runs, so to speak, or you go charging off to the Flemish cap. Your
Dad and my dad would probably get along well, they have the same. My dad has no problem. I’ve been cussed out plenty of times on his boat for how he operates within close quarters. He is a big fan of putting out way more rods and reels and tackle out into the water fishing than you actually need. He loves chaos and first trip of the year even need to go on it. Something’s going to break. You’ll be limping.
Oh yeah. That’s when you hook the giant. Well, you broke off and I don’t know why he broke off. When was the last time you retied that rig on there, dad? Well, I mean, I retied ’em all last year. Okay.
I love this time of year.
Yeah, it is. It’s good. It’s a lot of anticipation. And y’all get out there and give us a report. Let us know what you think. But get out there and y’all enjoy this report from a little bit further over to the west.
Let’s head on down and get our offshore report of the week. Excited to talk to Captain Kirk with Captain Charters. Welcome back to the show, man. How we doing today?
All good, man. Thanks for having me back.
Yes sir. Been a little while you’ve been running and gunning, hadn’t you?
Yes sir. We’ve been busy and when the weather’s good, we’ve been getting after it pretty hard. This year has just been a bad year for the wind. I mean we just haven’t gotten to run as much as we’d like to, but the fishing’s been good when we get to go. It’s been pretty good out there.
Yep. Definitely has been windy, man. I don’t know. I feel like it’s never going to end. It’s never ending blow here.
Yep,
Yep. I guess it’ll even out eventually. Well man, what have you guys been up to? I saw some really nice wahoo posts. I’ve seen some tuneups, seen some bottom fish. Just kind of walk us through your last couple of trips, what y’all been getting into.
Yeah, we’ve been going over to the horseshoes and the natural bottom and stuff like that over to the west, a pretty good bit and it’s kind of hit or miss. And we went over there one day and it wasn’t but three boats there, me and two other boats and some of the best fishing I’ve ever seen in my life. There was tuna jumping everywhere. We hooked nine big tuna on poppers, nine of them. I mean we’ve seen them eat it. And guess how many we got in the boat? Zero. Zero. Why sharks say every single one of them?
Oh no, man. That’s terrible.
Yes, I mean they didn’t come off. I mean we just were fighting them and these are big fish, every one of ’em over 150 pounds. And every time we hooked one, we had two triple hookups, got the wines undone, got everything, everything’s working good. As soon as those fish slow down enough to start just doing those circles, they’re getting ate by sharks. I mean the sharks are unwritten. They went back over there. Oh man, it was terrible. And a guy had brought a brand new spell out and he lost it overboard. Oh no, that’s a bad thing. Yeah, the drag was, we tightened up the drag and then one of the other guys had the pole and bye somebody another, some or another went overboard, but we ended up catching like a 50 pound king and a wahoo. But other than that, all those big, and every time we’d get these tuna hooked up, we’d say, oh man, we had our opportunity.
And there they go. They’d fire off again. And the weather got bad for a few days. We went back over there, we had boat boats over there, we were chunking and sure enough, guess what? We hooked up on some more and this was just chunking. And we had definitely had a tune on and we were everybody out there. I don’t know anybody else had any on, but we definitely had a couple on and we just didn’t get ’em up in time. And we set the reels where we had 32 pounds of drag on some of ’em. And I mean we were literally, you’ve got, as soon as that fish slows down, they’re getting, there’s just a pile of sharks over there. Right now’s unbelievable amount. And I’ve never, I’ve seen ’em this bad real early in January or something, but I think the tuna, the big tuna is kind of about over with over there anyway. But there were still some fish over there, but you basically cannot get ’em in. I think the only way you could get ’em in is maybe dragging a valley who some of the other guys got some in over there that one day, but they were on 50 wides and they were trolling and we didn’t have no valley who that day and they caught something like that.
That’s wild man. I don’t know what you do about that. How do we keep that in check? It’s just a slippery slope.
And I was talking to one of the guys over there and he is like, Hey man, what about these sharp devices that send some electric something that keeps ’em away from it? And I’ve tried, they gave me a few to try out and ironically enough, I mean the first trip we got sharked up real bad and they got ’em all. And if you had to buy ’em yourself, man, they’d be expensive. But for sure they, they’ve definitely got a real shark problem out there and everybody that’s straight up like offshore angler, everybody knows it. I mean, and it’s not just here, it’s like around the whole Gulf, I mean, and the east coast, I’ve been fishing over there and we’ve got a real shark problem. They need to kind of address it or open some dark fishing up for some of these fish to thin ’em out or whatever. And they’re home bin on these boats. They know where to get an easy meal at.
Oh yeah. They know what’s going on. Yeah, they got it figured out.
Yeah, they’re following us around, but
Golly, that’s crazy man.
Yeah, with that being said, the last couple trips we’ve done some overnight stuff and like mid trips where we go out part of the day and the daytime and then do a few hours in the night to get that nighttime bite, you can always pick up some black fin and we’ve been catching some smaller yellow fin. And the problem is right now, right where we’re at, it’s hard to find, there’s no bait in there right now. You’ve got to hope you find some bait out there at one of them drill ships or something or pass a grass line like a month ago or some grass out there and you could catch some hard tails or maybe pick up some of those manam or miners if you hadn’t ever done that, you need a scoop net and some gloves and they make for some pretty good bait if you are just trying to live bait for some tuna out there. So there’s a few yellowfin out there, it’s just kind of being hit or miss with the bait situation. If you had a live bait, you’d do good and if you didn’t, you didn’t do quite as good.
I’m not sure that I’m familiar with this man of war minnow that you’re talking about.
Okay, well if you go out there, you’ll see, you know what a man of war is,
Right? Oh yeah, for sure. Big bubble, big jellyfish on top of the water. Yeah, blue.
Well all of ’em got these miners around them. So what you do, especially if you find a rip line or something like that, all these man wars will be piled up or you’ll see ’em all floating around. Well they got these miners on them and you just need a big scoop net and you just scoop that whole fish up and these miners are up in the tentacles and believe it or not, some of ’em four or five inches long and basically you just catch these miners and put ’em in your live well and they’re a strange looking fish, but they work good. I mean the tuna of them. And if you can’t find any bait anywhere else, bring some go down to buy you and get you some rubber gloves and big scoop net and scoop you up some of those manwar miners and put ’em out there and they work.
Very interesting. You definitely taught me something today, Kat. Yep. What’s been the ticket for those? Wahoo? What’s been the optimal depth range in you guys fast trolling or what’s been the ticket for success with the wahoo lately?
Man, the Wahoos been like a hit or a miss, but they’ve been pretty steady. I think if you went out there all day and just trolled, I mean we’ve caught ’em all the way down pretty much straight off. We’ve been running all over the Gulf field lately and I think them guys from Venice a surprise when they see me at Matterhorn or something like that, that’s pretty much straight off south pass. But we’ve been going wherever we think we need to go to catch some fish and we’ve been trolling wherever and just doing whatever we think we can do to get some fish. And the wahoo pipe’s been pretty good this year. It’s just been a hit or miss. We had an epic trip the other day, they had three or four really nice wahoo. And I mean, well I’ve basically been using nomads because I don’t like to troll real.
The high speed trolling on center consoles just really isn’t practical. You’re just pushing a big swell and burning a lot of fuel. So I just like pulling the nomads around and you got to basically pull eight mile an hour or something like that and that’s what I pull. I mean I guess you can pull kind of whatever you want, but that’s generally somewhere in that neighborhood is what I pull. And we’ve just been hitting no shelf rigs and doing good with it and picking up, if we go out there and actually trying to catch one, we’re usually catching a few here lately. So water’s fishing has been great, damn great fish to eat and they’re fun to catch like a 50 pound king too. The other day we thought it was a water, it was screaming off is on down to the west. But that fishing’s man, there’s been some fine ones called the other day, another charter boat over there. They had a bunch, they have one over a hundred pounds and two or three other ones and we had some 70 pounders the other day. I mean just like absolute magnums, that’s what they were.
That’s right. That’s awesome. Do you know which nomad you, does it have a bill on it where it dives down or is it just the MENA that shakes or do you have an idea on the size, color and what kind you like?
Yeah, I like the two 20. I like the two twenties. Jay’s got ’em tackled this and if you right here, you pick them up a lot of places. But the two 20 work good or 200, the ones with the bills on ’em and ultimately the pink ones and the other ones the kind with the pink and purple stripes. I like that one. It’s just one of the go-to ones that I always use. But man, I think when they’re just biting, it’s just being there at the right time. I mean that’s a fish sometimes you, you’ll mark these fish at some of the rigs and they’re there, they’re just not biting. And another thing too is do you use wire or do you use mono? Well if you use mono, use a 200 pound mono or something. What I use, I mean you could probably go wider if you wanted to, but I just use a heavy mono if I’m going to use mono because you’re going to get more bites on mono, but then again, you’re going to, sooner or later you’re going to get cut off. Yeah,
You’re going to lose them eventually for sure.
Yeah. And it hurts you feeling. It hurts you feeling when you lose a 35, $40 literally. You know what I’m saying?
For sure.
Essentially if you get a bite, if the bar twos are right, man, they’re hitting them things left and right too. So I mean it’s just one of them things, but a lot of times you miss the opportunity, you get one if you got wire on there, sometimes they won’t hit it, so it’s just taking a chance and you might want to pull one more wire and one more mono that way if you lose
That’s right, you got one extra.
Yeah, you got one to go. But yep, that fishing has been good. We’ve been doing a little bit of bottom fishing, not a whole lot. The sheep head’s been on fire. We’ve been running a couple of sheep head trips and we had a split trip the other day and the sheep head fishing has been so good that on our six hour trip we’ve been going catching a nice mess of sheep head and then running out there and catching some trigger fishing bee liners and we’ve been real successful with that. There’s a lot of bee liners realistically at 25 miles and it’s that time of year when they’re a lot closer in and you can just fish some of your snapper wrecks or Anderson and places like that, big structure places and you’ll pick up a few big liners going through the snapper to snapper looks like it’s going to be a good year from what I’ve seen.
I mean there’s a lot of nice fish on stuff that usually don’t have that many nice. So I think it’s actually going to be, last year was kind of an off year this year I’ve seen a lot more fish out there. I just think it’s going to be a better year for the snapper fishing and trigger fish is kind of bouncing around, but the bee liners, they’re kind of strange because they’ll be there biting one day and you go back the very next day you might not get a bite. And that’s one of the reason we caught Autumn wa the other day is because Bee Liner just wasn’t biting so we just went ahead and started trolling and trollings one in things I really don’t like doing as much, but man, when you catch one of them big fish, you are like, man, I need to do this more. Yep.
It makes it worth it for
Sure. Yeah.
Well man, talking about those wahoo, that’s something that’s very in reach of most people that are listening to the show that have boats that like to do that kind of thing. More kind of advice or tips or tactics on that. I know you said eight miles an hour, you like those nomads and you mentioned the shelf rigs. I know what you’re talking about, I know where the shelf is, but about how far out is that and how do you set up, do you go over to the east and then work your way to the west hitting those rigs or do you run between rigs and then put ’em out and then circle or kind of what’s your strategy there?
Well, shelf rigs basically are anywhere and they’re cutting down these rigs left and right. They
Really are, man, I saw another one Saturday,
So you don’t have as many rigs as what you used to fish, which I wish I’d just let them things set out there, but whatever. Right.
Didn’t ask us today.
Yeah, we won’t even go into that. But yeah, 50 to 70 miles, 50, 65 miles, something like that. Pretty much any rig that’s out there in a couple hundred foot of water, if I was around them and had some free time or if just going to target ’em, I’d be trolling around them. And generally if you catch one and what I just try to do is go out there and do a couple circles and then maybe turn it around and go the other way. I mean a lot of times a fish biting on up current side of them, but it’s no telling man. I’ve rolled around them and they just fight on one corner and every time you turn around and hit that one corner you get a bite almost like clockwork. And you do that a couple times and for whatever reason they’re usually hanging out in the same place. So if you do get a bite or even if they miss it, try to go back and do the same thing that you just done. And a lot of times it’ll be rewarding and say I would go just when I got there, I’d get a couple hundred yards off of it and then just work my way up to it, just make some passes fairly close to it and just do a couple circles around them and see what happens.
You get too close, you get them barracuda bites.
Yep, that’s right.
Yep. Yeah. Kirk, it’s been a pleasure having you on today, man. That was a great report. You kind of walked us through everything from near shore to offshore. We appreciate you being old today. If people want to get up with you and book a trip, what’s the best way to get in contact with you?
You can look me up on Facebook, captain coach Charters or just give me a call if I’m around I’ll answer or and get a voicemail or 2 5 1 2 8 8 1 0 3 or I’m on Instagram Captain 13 and have a webpage and you book it at Fishing Chaos. And that’s about it. We’d love to take you and we just want to have a good time and go catch some fish.
That’s right. Collecting the magnums.
Yep.
All right. Ka be safe out there man. We look forward to hearing from you next time.
Yep. Thanks sir.
That was a very informative offshore report from Captain Kirk done at Captain Kirk Charters.
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