Fishing

It's been a couple weekends since I typed up a report but I have been runnin' hard. The Weekend Red Snapper season held up with fairly nice weather and a great bite of fish all the way to the end.

Yesterday was the last day for the 2010 "special" snapper season. In between catching Snappers, Groupers and Kings I went over to Indian Pass for 5 days and took a father/son fishing team on the flats in the morning sight fishing redfish and out to the oyster bars in the afternoon chasing Trout.

I am happy to report that

The last cold front to come through was a real one, dropping the night time temps down to the low 40's and bringing a hard Northwest wind.

The Gulf temp has dropped down to right at 70 degrees on the beach. While this turns off the swimmers in shorts and bikinis it sure makes the fish bite!

I had to cancel both my trips last Friday as the wind was just too much for it to have been any fun on the water.

 The weather has gone into a more normal pattern for this time of year but the days of calm on the beach and clear high skies seem to be coinciding perfectly with the weekends. Right along with when we can keep those Red Snappers.

After one of the longest runs of calm pretty weather in recent memory, the surf and southerly winds came up this weekend.

I'm sure all my skinny friends with short boards and the surf shop owners thought it would never happen! We had some great catches right before it got rough and even slid in one trip between the weather and got a full board of fish.

The title is the easy answer to a whole pile of questions. The weather has been on one of the longest runs of darn near perfect I can remember - the June grass has (finally) left the beach leaving crystal emerald water and the fishin' aint shabby either!

Every Friday brings yet another opening day of snapper season and lots of boats out capturing 'em.

Perfect weather, crystal-clear water, great fishing and we even get to eat a few snappers. South Walton in October has got to be one of the best places on the planet !

The weekend red snapper season continues to find lots of big red critters hangin' on all the beach boats' boards.

The big news is that we finally get to keep a few of those Red Snappers we have been having to feed the dolphins for the past couple of months.

Everyone who went out on the opening weekend came in with a fine catch of Snapper.

Calm seas, perfect skies and clear water made for a successful reopening of the 2010 red snapper season on Friday, as local fishing boat captains and their lucky crews launched from Grayton beach shortly after sunrise.

A few hours later, happy anglers returned with their catch in hopes of claiming cash prizes. Grayton Beach fisherman Edmond Alexander organized the event and served as scale master.

As you may know, the 2010 Snapper Season will reopen in the Gulf on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays starting Friday, October 1 through Sunday, November 21.

This is an effort by the Feds and the State of Florida to make up for the shortest Federally-imposed Snapper Season ever – 45 days – that was shortened even more by the oil spill. The reopened season is an effort to bring fishermen and visitors back to the beaches this fall.

The best news on the Gulf fishing scene is the that the triggers have started to move in.

After a a summer of having to catch ten to keep one of legal size, it's nice to be finding quite a few bigger ones and coming in with a nice mess of what I consider to be one of the best eating fish there is.

These folks had a blast catching Mackerel and Triggers. Yep, the kids out-fished the parents !