Well, October has come and gone. Looking back the weather was good, the fishing was great, and the company I had for trips was some of the best I can say I have ever had. With fully 24 days fishing with clients last month I can say I spent a lot of time away from home out on the water. October saw a lot of changes towards the end of the month. We are officially into fall and the fall weather and fishing patterns are in full swing. The first strong cold front always gets things accelerated a bit.
October saw a list of species caught that is too long to post, but I can say that it included too many Snook and Redfish to count, Cobia, Permit, Sharks of various species to 250lbs, grouper, snapper, trout, triple tail, Tarpon, Bluefish, Mackerel and more.
I had so many great trips last month that its hard to pick a few to talk about specifically. However, I did have a terrific time with a great family from Scotland that fished 3 days with me in October. Rather than fishing 3 days in a row, or one week they were able to fish 1 day per week for 3 weeks straight. This gave us a bit of a break between trips, afforded them the ability to experience several different weather patterns, and made it feel like fishing with old friends when they showed up to the dock.
The Macdonalds split their trips up with Gordon (patriarch of the family), youngest son Craig, and eldest Neil on the first trip. We spent a good 6 hours picking on snook around the mangroves with good action all day. Towards the end of the day we wandered onto a school of 200+ redfish and managed to get a triple hookup and several doubles on overslot reds in shallow water. I don’t know how many we caught, but I am sure that everyone on the boat caught a few in about an hour of mayhem.
Their second trip consisted of Gordon and middle son David. We fished the beach in the morning with some success on Snook, and poked around Lemon bay the rest of the day with a mix of Jacks, Snook, Snapper, and even some juvenile grouper. David absolutely destroyed Gordon in their contest of not only size and number, but also the number of species. I think David wracked up somewhere around 8 species for the day not including any catfish!
Day three it was up to Gordon and his wife Eleanor for 4 hours chasing snook around the mangroves again. After dropping her off at the dock to head back for some golf with the boys, Gordon said he wanted to pick a fight with some strong fish on light tackle and didn’t care what they were. This time of year I know just where to take him. We pulled up to some local shore associated structure, tossed out a bait, and the game was on. Gordon spent the next 3 hours fighting a mix of big jacks and snook to well over 25lbs. We started out with 10lb spinning outfits and worked our way all the way up to 30lb spinning gear with the drags locked and were still getting burned on 100yd runs UP CURRENT!
Towards the end of the month I had a terrific time fishing Steve, Jim, and Jim’s son Richard. We fished all day Saturday and Sunday with a nice mix of Snook, Reds, and various other flats dwellers. Day one produced overslot reds, underslot snook, and a good mix of jacks, ladies, etc. By day two I began to affectionately refer to Jim as “Jack” because of his uncanny ability to catch Jack Crevalle almost instantly from every spot we fished. “Jack” was the proud owner of a 36″+ female snook that he wrestled from deep under the cover of some snagly mangroves on 10lb braid. We didnt possess this big girl for long enough to get a photo, but she was an official catch. I would however like to point out to him that this happened before he started his shenanigans with the Jacks! Steve and Richard also possessed their own fishing super powers. Richard was able to catch Snook, Snook, and nothing but Snook! No matter where we fished (even the best redfish holes around) Richard was always hooked up to a linesider! He hooked some upperslot fish, but was run into the structure, got broken off by gillplates, or had just darn bad luck pulling hooks with these bigger fish. Steve’s powers proved the most usefull. After landing a beautiful Lemon Bay Redfish that was over the slot by less than 1/4″ I told him “Now Steve, you guys wanted dinner so make sure you dont catch any more of those overslot fish. Keep it under 27 inches”. To my surprise Steve landed a perfect 26.9″ red on the very next cast. He followed that up with a Day Two 27″ red that was on the money by the thinnest of hairs! He didn’t catch a red that was outside of 26.8-27″ for the rest of our time. They were great guys, and I cant wait to spend some time with them again!
As I mentioned, I think that I had the best group of folks out this past month than I have ever had in such a short amount of time. Beyond fishing clients, I made some great friends this month and I look forward to keeping in contact with all of them as well as fishing with them in the future. Thanks to everyone for a great October. If I didn’t mention your trip, please know that they all mean a lot to me and I just have a limited amount of time to write these reports!
Take care, and have happy holidays starting this month. My presents for Christmas come early in the form of outstanding fishing in November and December!
Capt. Tom
