Stinky’s Bait Shack has a name that belies its great selection of beach and water fare. It is the kind of place you sometimes stumble upon that is completely unexpected. The guys and gals of Stinky’s know how to do it right. Owner and chef, Jim Richard, along with Bait Shack manager, Kelli Younkin, have put a ton of thought, backed by experience, into exactly what their shop should offer.
The long awaited opening of Red Snapper season for 2015 came Saturday morning with a navy of recreational anglers ready to go catch the first of many days worth of the hard-pulling, tasty critters.
The morning started calm and pretty and I did my traditional "crack of dawn" run with my son and some friends to put a quick limit of the first fish over the rail before running my charters for the day. The reds bit hot and we were back in on the beach catching live bait for my charters in 45 minutes. I picked up my first trip at 7:30 for these folks second annual opening day trip.
Fishing has really been great for the past ten days. The King Mackerel bite has been really on, there has been a push of Amberjacks up in fairly close with a lot of fish being over the 30-inch fork length minimum along with a few really BIG ones mixed in.
I just realized this afternoon it's been over 2 weeks since I wrote a fishin' report.... Oh well, better late than not at all. The weather has really been up and down the past couple weeks and the weather gurus have not been able to predict dark let alone how hard the wind will blow or if it will rain.
After having perfect weather for the busiest part of Spring Break we have turned kinda soggy this week. Not near as bad as what the the weather gurus have predicted though. I missed Sat, Sun. & Mon. due to rainy/windy conditions but got to run under dry but overcast skies the next 3 days even though the official forecast was 80% chance of rain.
Today is back to breezy and rain so I am on the hill again, tomorrow is anybody's guess 'cause the weatherman does not seem to have a clue.
I have been taking lots of families out fishing on spring break. It's a great thing to do with your kids, whether they are 10 or 22, it's fun, gives everybody some good family memories and ... some really good dinners! College kids to grammar schoolers - families that have fished with me for over 10 years and I have watched the kids grow.
The folks that have come this week for Spring Break certainly got the weather right. Man, it finally turned gorgeous! Upper seventies, blue skies and crystal blue-green water. This would pass for summer in a lot of the world!
After what seemed like a whole winters' worth of cold weather (a little over a week here) we have warmed back up. I got the new "Federal" boat put together finally and was dying to get it out. Edmond, the Grayton Beach Harbor Master, and I test ran her in the bay on a windy, choppy day for the sea trial and we were pleased with the results.
In the bayou at Point Washington
While we have not had near as much winter weather as our northern relatives, it is still February here at the beach. I have been very fortunate to have lots of folks wanting to go fishing lately but the weather has limited us to three trips since my last report.
The current forecast has the boat and I stuck on the hill for another week as well. Oh well, it just makes those perfect days on the water even sweeter if we have to deal with what most of the country thinks of as "reality" or normal for just a little bit.
I have been back in South Walton for a week now and while our 1,700 mile tour of Florida was interesting I'm glad to be fishing off Grayton again. My wife and I towed the camper from here down the West Coast to Everglades City, across to the East Coast, up to St. Augustine and back to Seagrove in 12 days. I got to see and fish a bunch of Florida I have never seen in my almost 60 years of living here and visited a lot places I had great memories of from fishing and surfing back in the early '70's B.K. (before kids).
