By: Capt. Philip Watson
This time of the year our main focus is on Red Snapper and the first part of the season has been very successful for us. We are targeting these in 140-190’ depths on a variety of live and cut baits. Remember when fishing these red snappers, the bigger of the fish are on top of the school, therefore, after you drop your bait down reel it up a few cranks up off the bottom.
The highlight trip of the month was with my good friend Keaton Hinze from What The Fin Apparel for our yearly trip. The fish I had on my mind was tuna and boy did we find some. The first stop was in 95’ on a piece of hardbottom, while grouper fishing Brad noticed a black fish come a eat a discarded bait. We immediately through out some flat lines and as soon as the bait hit the water we were hooked on black fin tuna. These fish we churning the water and jumping all the way out for our live chummers. We landed two in the chaos and lost another 3-4 in the mix. Soon after we made a move to some grouper bottom a little deeper and along the way ran into some beautiful whale sharks. These sea creatures were at least 25’ long and hung around the boat for at least an hour.
After our encounter with the whale sharks we decided to check out a spring for some catch and release action, and were met by some angry barracuda and some fun fighting amberjacks. The amberjacks chummed up to the top which made for some amazing top water action and the barracudas just couldn’t resist the cuda tubes. The bite is going off right now so make sure you take some time off to enjoy the beautiful Gulf of Mexico!
Just Kickin Back Charters
Captain Philip Watson
www.justfishfl.com
