Friday afternoon was truly an inshore fishing adventure. Chris his son Ryan and daughter Mason and family friend Lauren from Texas had a trip to remember for sure. Loads of sheepshead, we could have loaded the boat, but they only kept enough for everyone at the condo for dinner. We also headed out into the gulf for some light tackle Spanish mackerel action along the beach. What a great trip; rods bent all day, drags screaming and lots of smiles and laughs. That’s what Spring break is all about. This week was a great start to the new season and I couldn’t have asked for better clients.

Triple Hook ups are always fun	Two big sheepshead and a nice  3lb Spanish mackerel.	Lauren holds up two Spanish macks caught just off the Pensacola Beach

Lauren, Mason, Ryan and Chris show off a mess of sheepshead and spanish mackerel ready for a fish fry!

It’s been a great week of fishing so far, and I’m looking forward to the next trip to show my clients what March fishing is all about here in the Panhandle.

Mark and his boys had a great time hooking up sheepshead all day!

We could have loaded the boat, but they only wanted a few for dinner that nigh

John bowed up and his prize a nice 22" Sheepie! --- Alan is battling a sheepshead in the fog and lands a nice 18 Sheepie!

Jim shows us a great inshore catch a big 21" Sheepie!  --Marty his dad Jim and his sons Alan & John had fun catching sheepshead all day in Pensacola Pass.

Tackle Corner

My tackle this year is the same as last year with a couple of new combo’s. The combo’s I used last year are my 4000 Penn Battles with 7ft Medium Heavy All Star Rods. The new combo’s are my Abu Garcia 6600c bait casters with 7 Ft Medium Heavy Berkley Lighting Rods.  Both of these setups are landing these big sheepies with ease, yet they are still light enough to have great fight.

Till the next adventure, Tight Lines.

Capt. John

Report : March 7th  - 2012 --- Pensacola Fishing Reports 

March always comes in with high winds and this year is no exception. For the last few days, it’s been blowing 15 –20 knots with some gusts around 25 –30 knots. Sheepshead season has started in Pensacola Pass and I’ve already been out a couple of times hooking up on some tasty sheepies and other drag screaming critters. What’s great about fishing this area is you can catch a variety of fish like sheepshead, redfish, red snapper, black drum and grouper. This area has always been productive because of its abundant food source throughout the year, but especially in spring. The key to successfully fishing this area is to watch the tides. Some folks like the outgoing tide better than the incoming, but I have found that as long as the water’s moving, the bite is great.

Pensacola Beach is known for being a great place to spend Spring Break especially for families because of the variety of water activities, and fishing is one of the number one draws to this area. My son is on Spring Break from Florida State University this week, and redfish is one of his favorite fish to catch so we’re heading out on Friday to catch some reds and also some sheepshead.

Terry and his wife are all smiles after landing sheepshead all day.

Terry was all smiles after landing this nice Gag, but bummed

 when I told him I we had to let it go because its out of season.

I’m getting pretty booked up for March and I’m looking forward to showing my guests some great light tackle action. I don’t post trips every day but will be posting once a week and will try to include lots of pictures and a detailed recap on the weekly fishing.

Here are some pics of the past few trips and some from last year.

Till the next adventure…tight lines.

Capt. John

eport : Feb 26th  - 2012 --- Pensacola Inshore Guided Charter Fishing Reports  

Pensacola Pass Light Tackle Drag Screaming Fun!

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been up in the upper bay / rivers doing some fun brackish water fishing for trout and reds, and so the pass was a nice change of pace.

My group for the day was a great crew from northern Alabama who really wanted to go fishing and bow up on some great fighting reds. I splashed the boat in Perdido Key because the wind was blowing a solid 20 knots and I didn’t want to deal with the rough water in the bay since the wind was blowing out of the northeast. My clients David, Buck, Keith and Steve were eager to see what deep dropping in the pass was all about, and they couldn’t wait to see what kind of fish they would get to see. The variety of fish caught in the pass range from redfish, sheepshead, red snapper, grouper, black drum, flounder and a few other smaller species.  

Keith with a nice Black Drum

The forecast was calling for the winds to die down around 2 –3 pm so we launched the boat at noon.  Since high tide was peaking around 11:30, so I figured we’d fish the outgoing tide and hopefully the bite would be good. With a livewell full of lively shrimp and a few fiddler crabs and the rods rigged we made our way across Big Lagoon. We arrived at the pass in quick order and I gave a short tutorial on how to fish with circle hooks as well as J hooks, and what to do if we hooked into a monster redfish and what to do if we hooked into a big red snapper or grouper that was trying to take them back into the rocks. After the short demonstration, the guys were ready to see what lurked below.

Buck with a nice big redfish

Buck shows off a 41"  redfish

It didn’t take long before I heard Buck yell out, “Captain, I think I’ve got a fish, and he’s not stopping! How do I stop him?” I looked at the rod and I could tell it was a redfish. Little did I realize that it was a MONSTER 41’ REDFISH. Buck did battle with this fish for a long time on the medium heavy 7 ft All Star rod matched up with a Penn Battle 4000. After we boated the fish and took a few pics, I revived the fish and he swam off to be caught another day. Buck said, “That was awesome, but if we hook another one, you guys can have it, my wrist is spent!” We all laughed and ribbed him a bit for complaining. The bite stayed steady all 5 hrs and we caught a variety of fish including red snapper, one which went a good 4 lbs and my guys were bummed that we had to let it go, to red many more smaller snappers which made for great light tackle fun.

Buck checks out his first ever red snapper, I told him to come 

back in the summer and then he could keep it. He was bummed we had to let it go.

Somewhere in the middle of the trip I heard David say, I think I’ve got a redfish.” But this one was not fighting as hard as Buck’s, and it didn’t take too long until David had a nice 27” 8 lb red in the boat.

David bowed up with a nice red

David shows off a perfect 27" 8 lb red!

We snapped a few pics and tossed him in the fish bag. Not long after that, Keith bowed up with a nice black drum that also made its way into the fish bag. Near the end of the trip I actually heard Buck say, “Hey, I think I’ve got another red, anyone want it?” So, Steve stepped up, grabbed the rod and the battle was on. Steve did a great job fighting his fish and a few minutes later he had his trophy in the boat. The guys did a great job, it took them a bit to get used to the circle hooks, so we missed a few fish, but they definitely got the hang of it. 

Steve is all smiles after landing this 32" Redfish

Even though it was a windy cold day, we managed to have a great day on the water with some great light tackle fun.
The guys are coming back in mid May to do some flats fishing. I’ll be taking them in up in Escambia / Blackwater when they come back to do some trout and red fishing on the flats using artificials.

Till the next adventure.  

Capt. John

Report : Feb 20th  - 2012 --- Pensacola Charter Fishing Reports

Brackish water slam of sorts.

Had the pleasure of meeting David, his son Andrew, and Bill from Minnesota.

I originally wanted to fish the afternoon with the tides and to also let the sun come out and warm things up, but the crew had to be at the airport at 3pm, so we had to do a morning trip and be off the water around 1pm. Because of the cold weather the night before and nearly 3” of rain the past few days, the water was very muddy which meant lots of fresh water. I had the guys slow down their presentations almost to a dead still and work areas that should have still been holding fish, even with all the rain. 

 I hit ledges and drop-offs that started around 3 ft and dropped off to 6-10 ft.; this is where I had a feeling the fish would be staged. It turned out to be a good choice. On our first stop, Bill boated a bass, and I was immediately a little concerned, (did we get too much freshwater for the area I was fishing?), but a few minutes later Bill boated a nice 17” speck, so I felt better and decided to hang around this area for a bit.  We had a few more hits and then the bite shut off so we moved downriver to a flat where I was hoping to find some reds in very shallow water warming themselves on the muddy flat bottom. But they were nowhere to be found. 

I stowed the Minn Kota and decided to move way down south to much cleaner water. We arrived to find very nice water, and started fishing depths from 3 –10ft, but didn’t even get a nibble.

I was really wishing we could have fished the afternoon bite, which would have brought in some much needed saltwater to the upper bay area, but we kept our fingers crossed that the tide would help us out if we could hit it just right. The tide started to come back in so I made the long run back upriver to a cove where I’d caught some decent reds on some of my past trips.
Not long after we arrived I saw Andrew bowed up and I could tell from the way the drag was screaming, it was a good fish. I told him to play the fish carefully; this reel had 10 lb Berkley Ultra Braid with 15 lb fluorocarbon mono leader. I like using the lighter braid because it casts twice as far as 20 lb braid and 10 lb braid usually is much stronger than 10 lbs. Andrew worked the fish like a pro with just a little coaching. 

 The fish put up a dramatic battle and walked him around the boat twice. Andrew’s arms were shaking with both strain and excitement and when the fish finally surfaced and I netted him, Andrew couldn’t believe how big it was. We hauled up a whopper 41” beastly red. We all high-fived and took a few pics and then released this monster back into the river.

We fished this area a while longer with a few more bites from trout and then I heard Andrew say, “I’ve got another one!” Andrew gave the rod to his dad to fight this one, and Dave did an outstanding job battling the bronze bruiser. Dave saw how powerfully Andrews’s fish was, so he took his time and after he walked around the boat once we had his fish in the net. The fish measured at 35” and had some cool spots. I checked the time and we had to haul butt back to the ramp to get the guys to the airport to make their flight.

We had a great inshore trip even though the bite was a bit difficult.
We didn’t catch loads of fish today, but we did manage to put some quality fish in the boat. No fish kept on this trip, but I’ll be hitting the water again this week and weekend.

Baits used were Berkley’s famous gulp baits; from 3” shrimps to 6.5’ jerk shads in a variety of colors and MirrOlure’s Paul Brown in a variety of colors.

Thanks for stopping by, and Tight Lines.

Blackwater Inshore Light Tackle Fun.

Had a trip today and it was a tough one; funny how one day is so much different than the other. I had three excited anglers on the boat from the Lake Erie area, Jim, his brother Andy and Andy’s wife Lucy. They were avid walleye fishermen and fisherwoman and wanted to do some upper bay inshore fishing. We hit the water around 7:30am, and I noticed the water was a little lower than usual for low tide in this area.

I planned on fishing some areas that had a little deeper water around 6 –10 ft first and then move onto the flats when the tide started to come in as I knew the fish would start to move up on the flats as the water got deeper. Our first spot was near the mouth of a creek off the main river.

 I had hit this area last Wednesday and the fish were staged near the drop-offs. It turned out to be a good choice, as we managed to catch 5 rat reds and 4 trout in the 14-16” range. We played around this area for a little bit and moved on. I wanted to check out a flat where I’ve spotted some reds cruising the shallows and was hoping we’d have a shot at sight fishing a few reds. Unfortunately, the reds weren’t there so we moved to spot three and this is where Lucy landed the biggest fish of the day, which was not a red, but a whopper 21” trout that looked and felt pretty heavy; I figured it was around 3.5 –4 lbs.

I had my clients tossing a variety of baits today since the fish were a bit picky. The three Gulp baits were 5” Lime Tiger jerk-shads, 6.5” Camo jerk-shads, and a 3” White/Chartreuse Berkley Gulp shrimp; all rigged on a ¼ oz jig head. The bait that Lucy landed her gator trout on was MirrOlure’s Paul Brown suspending twitch bait. I used these lures last spring and they always seem to do the trick. We hit a lot of areas today and most of the areas had fish, but we had to keep changing up our presentation. It wasn’t until our last area where we really got into the speck bite, but again it was 12 –14” trout with only a few keepers.  Lucy’s trout still ended up being the trophy fish of the trip.

We caught a good number of trout with about 8 reds today. The weather cooperated and we didn’t see any rain.  Had a fun group today, and everyone was a good sport. They plan on coming back down in November, and I can’t wait to show them what the fall redfish run is all about!

Wish we would have caught a few bigger fish this outing, but we’ll just have to give it another go next trip.

Till the next adventure

Report : Feb 15th  - 2012 --- Pensacola Guided Inshore Charter Reports

Pre Springtime Inshore Slam on Blackwater.

Went out yesterday with a buddy of mine to do a little scouting and to see what we could hook up. Checked the tides for Blackwater and decided to hit the water at 7am. It turned out to be perfect conditions for a morning fishing trip. Started out looking for stripers with no luck. As we were heading down river I spotted some bait busting on a bank, so we slowed, lowered the Minn Kota, and started working lures along the bank. We were using Berkley Gulp 5” jerk-shad in Mango Ripple and 3” Shrimp White/Chartreuse on a ¼ oz jig head.

We pulled out 4 nice specks right off the bat, and then it slowed, so we pulled up the Minn Kota and moved on. This was a scouting trip, so after we hooked a few fish in an area, we moved on to scout out new areas. I wanted to check out an area that I felt would hold some reds, and as soon as we reached it, we managed to pull 6 reds out. Moved to another bank where we spotted some activity nearby, and had two very good strikes from stripers, but no hookups.

We were bummed about missing the hookups with the stripers as we moved around to a few more areas of Blackwater Bay. We found some areas holding good specks, and some that weren’t. We hit an area I’ve not hit in about a year and a half, and caught a nice 2.5 lb flounder.

 I was stoked; I had my slam. We fished this area a bit longer and pulled out 4 more trout. Again we picked up and moved on. We could have stayed at some of these locations and wore ourselves out on catching fish, but this was a scouting trip about finding new areas holding fish and figuring out why the fish are staging up in these areas. That way when I go back either with clients or fun fishing I should have a more productive day on the water. After a bit, we headed back up river and spotted some activity on the surface and tossed out a Gulp on a ¼ oz jig and hooked up a whopper 41-inch red close to or over 20lbs.

 I was using 10-pound ultra braid and it was game on; after a good 15-minute battle and two times around the boat, I had him in the net. What a great day on, even though the sun didn’t come out till we left, and it was much cooler than the weatherman said it was going to be, it still turned out to be a great day on the water.
Till the next adventure.
Tight Lines.

Capt. John

Report  Feb 1st  - 2012 --- Pensacola Guided Inshore Charter Reports

January has come and gone and that just means it is one month closer to spring. I’m starting to feel Spring Fever and I guess it’s because we’ve had a very mild winter and the trees are already starting to bud. I think it’s going to be an early spring and that the ground hog won’t see his shadow; hopefully I’m not jinxing myself. During February I’m usually fishing in the upper bay areas for specks, reds, and this year I’ll go after some stripers. I’ve been up in the river a few times wetting a line for all three species and I had some pretty good luck a majority of the time.

During the winter months, the fish stage up in very deep holes in the upper rivers; you will still find them on the flats, but later in the day when they are sunning themselves to get warm. Fishing in the upper rivers can be very difficult if you’re not familiar with the patterns of winter fishing. The first thing you need for success is very good water movement. Next, it helps to learn when the fish move up on the flats and when they are in the deep holes.

During the winter months, it helps to position your boat up near the “wind blown” banks, because you are closer to where the bait is pushed into the bank. Bigger fish will hug the bank feeding on the bait that is pushed in by the wind and the tide.  One of the most important keys to a successful winter fishing trip is slowing down your presentation. Typically, fish are a bit more sluggish in the cooler months, so slowing your bait presentation will pay off for you big time. I forgot to mention that I’m using artificials only in these areas, but of course you can use live bait, but I really like using artificials when fishing the upper bay areas in the winter.

As you can tell, I really like winter fishing in the upper bay areas, because it brings me back to my roots when I was a young bass fisherman.

In a few more weeks, I’ll be heading to the pass going after some funky bucked-tooth critters with jailhouse stripes. I may love winter fishing, but I’m always ready for the next adventure.

Report  Jan. 15th  - 2012 --- Pensacola Inshore Fishing Report 

Tasty Trout & Light Tackle Redfish

It got downright cold out this weekend, but that wasn’t going to stop me from getting out on the water to get my fishing fix. My wife was nice enough to give up her day off to take me out for a fun day of trout fishing and red fish scouting.  We had a hankering for some tasty seafood for dinner tonight, so we hit the bridge for fresh white trout. We didn’t stay at the bridge long, just long enough to get a few in the live well for dinner. We had a few friends that hung out around the boat begging for a free meal, about 5 pesky pelicans.

After making our escape from the hungry pelicans, we made our way down to the west and then headed out of the pass to sight fish the reds in the shallows. We found a nice school of fish, but they weren’t interested in our offerings. They were very skittish and after 15 minutes or so we pulled up the Minn Kota and headed back to the pass. The tide was coming in and I decided to drift the ledges with small live baits and artificials. The bite started out slow; we made a few drifts and got no bites, but I had a feeling that we were going to hit the jackpot soon, and I’m glad I stuck to my guns.
It was our 4^th drift and I looked over at Gina, who was bowed up!  Her right wrist was actually very sore from reeling in the trout from earlier, so she handed the first red to me. 

After she helped me net the 29 inch beast, we took a pic, and let him loose.  She is very competitive, and so when the next one bent her rod, she would not turn it over to me.  She fought this one like a pro, and we had our 2^nd red for the day. I caught the next fish, although this time it was a squirrelfish!  Not to be outdone, Gina hooked up another just barely over-sized redfish.  We drifted this area for a little while longer, caught one more redfish each, and then decided to head back, as she was getting cold.

What a woman!  We went up to Blackwater last Monday for some flats fun, and then today went out to Pensacola Bay for white trout and scouted the gulf a bit for redfish. Despite the cold weather and the slow start in the pass, we ended up with 5 reds, 1 squirrelfish, and a belly full of delicious white trout

Tight Lines.

Capt. John

Report  Jan. 1st  - 2012

Well, another year has come and gone, and as good as the fishing was in 2011, I’m already eager to see what the New Year brings.
I was on the water nearly every day the last week of the year, and it was some of the best bull red fishing of the year and some great trout fishing as well. Only one day last week was not so good and that was the last day of 2011, because we were pretty much fogged in the whole day and could only fish the bridge for short time and had to end the trip a bit early. Other than that the week was outstanding. Each day I splashed the boat around 10am and worked the incoming tides at the bridge for trout and out in the bay for the big reds.

John bowed up with a big redfish. ---------  John is all smiles after landing this big redfish.

Anne had the big red of the day!  ----   Kevin with a big Pensacola Bay Redfish.

Alan is all smiles after landing this big redfish -- Triple Hook-u are always fun!

The bite was very good for big trout at the bridge last week with a few at nearly 20 inches. Each day I timed the tides just right at the bridge and we hammered the trout. All fish were caught on ¼  -3/4 oz jigs with Berkley Gulp shrimp or Berkley Gulp jerk shads. If you’ve never tried Berkley Gulp for white trout or even speckled trout you need to give it a try.  During the winter months it’s like having magic bait. Most of the trout were right around 15 –16 inches and we also had several that were 10 –13 inches, but we let the little ones go to be caught next year. During our trout expeditions we also managed to hook a few slot reds, which made for great drag screaming action and a few nice additions to the ice chest. Each day before I hit the bridge I checked a few spots where I’ve been catching big reds and a couple of times they were there and a few times they weren’t. One of my spots is in kind of shallow water 3 –6 ft, which is great for sight fishing. Each spot usually holds about 5 –8 big reds or 6 –12 slots.

AJ fishes for trout at the bridge.  ----   Janet brings in a healthy trout at the bridge

As we get closer to the fishing area I go over a few techniques on how to approach spooky fish in shallow water, where to cast and how to retrieve the bait and what to do when he strikes. When we’re on the flats fishing for the reds during the winter I’ll use a couple of baits, one is a Berkley Gulp 3” shrimp or a Berkley Gulp 5” jerk-shad on a 1/4oz jig head. If we’re fishing for the big reds out in the bay or gulf, then we use a 1.5  - 2oz Spro buck tail jig with a laser tail attached or some type of medium grub curly tail for flash usually in chartreuse or red.

John Sr. shows of his biggest red of the day -- John, John Sr. & Matt had a great time catching reds in Pensacola Bay

Matt is all smiles after landing this big redfish.

There are those times when we are at my shallow water spots and the fish are not there or just not interested in our offerings, then it’s off to another spot like the bridge for trout or see if the birds are working bait pods pushed up by the big reds. If I don’t see the reds, I’ll go to where I’ve hooked up reds in the past and watch the bottom machine for any signs of life. Let me tell you, my Lowrance proved its weight in gold this winter. There were a few times the reds popped, but more times they didn’t and having a very good bottom machine put my clients on big reds. So, a big thanks to Lowrance for making such a great product.

This year was a great year in fishing, and I really enjoyed getting out this December with my clients for some end of the year adventures on the water

Lela is all smiles after landing this nice red.

Brian is bowed up with a monster red.

Brian with his prize a MONSTER 42" Red

Jerry is all smiles after lading this trophy redfish.

Triple Hook-ups are common when the redfish bite is hot!