Robin's Reports

10/13/06 Blessed on Friday the 13th!!!!!


M with a short American Red Snapper.

Again with one of the 20 something baby Red Groupers we caught.



Captain Jack with his short Amer. Red Snapper. You can tell they are juvenile ARSs by their black spot on the side.



Big M with his baby Red Grouper.



Capt with his Toad fish, nicknamed the Mother-in-Law fish.

Do not touch one of these!




Our guest Bill came to fish with us. He ended up numerous times like this. There are plenty of Goliath groupers (100-500 lbs) in this area that we were fishing. We could never muscle them up, so the best you can hope for is to stop the pressure and they generally will spit out your hook.





Uhhh ohhhh!!!!!!!!! Shark...... I saw the big sweeping tail and thought lemon but before I could grab the camera, Jack says, "Nurse!"


Indeed, it was a nurse shark.

This same shark took me for a ride a few minutes earlier before going to Bill's squid and somehow managing to hook himself in the pectoral (left side) fin. He still had my line hanging out of his/her mouth.

Estimated 5 ft, 25-30 lbs. Beautiful fish.


Bill had been exhausted from his fishing battles after a long night on the job. He took a nap in the beanbags on the ride in. It looks like he found somebody to curl up with.


We fished the same general area from 11:30 - 5pm. We would have loved to anchor up and catch the evening bite. We were in Mangrove Snapper territory; however, we had to get Bill back on the road to Orlando.


Here's the tally for the day.
L to R: 9 big grunts (4 that escaped the picture) to make Grits-n-Grunts meal one night.
2 Lane Snappers
1 Mangrove Snapper

2 purple grunts (exact name unknown)
20+ baby red groupers
2 small Amer. Red Snappers
1 Nurse shark

No heroes, but we bagged fish and the kids had a fabulous time catching many of these. I played First Mate, helping them. Bill was happy to have caught his first shark (nice one too).
Pretty soon, the bigger fish will migrate into this area for the winter feeding and warmer waters. Fishing only gets better from this point on.

Happy Fishing!
Robin