1/01/06 reports

[Capt. Bryan Russell]

Offshore/nearshore

Well, we finally had some decent seas this past week. Whew, its been a long time coming, thats for sure!

The snapper and grouper bite while slower than it was a few weeks ago is still good. Target areas 12-20 miles out. On 12/30 we started in about 55 feet of water, first two spots produced a couple of short snapper, sharks, sharks, sharks, and grunts. Not what we were looking for! We threw all the grunts in a bucket to use later for cut bait, and i'm glad we did and i'll get to that in a minute.....

We made another move out to about 75 feet. As i was running along and watching my bottom machine with my finger on the man overboard button, I saw something and instantly hit MOB and made a quick turn around. We dropped 3 baits to prospect the spot and immediatly started cranking in sea bass. I don't mean your run of the mill fish, But the big greenheads up to 18 inches! we stayed there a couple of hours an put 60 plus NICE fish in the boat. What a fine eatin' mess of fish. We added a 15 lb. grouper and a snapper to the box also. Oh, I almost forgot! the bait of choice for the BIG seabass? Cutbait from all those grunts we saved. We had squid and sardines, but the bigger bass wanted that cut grunt. I'm Glad we saved them! Just goes to show you have to be willing to experiment a little! Tight lines and screamin' drags, Capt. Bryan

Inshore

The trout bitecontinues to be good, although not as good as last week, I expect that will change with the moon this week. Creek mouths in the ICW as well as the tips of the jetties are producinga mix of sea trout, yellowmouth, flounder and redfish. The Sheepshead fishing has been hot and cold. The Ringtail porgies are starting to show up so the fishing at the rocks will continue to improve. When the ringtails show, The sheepshead usually get thicker too.

[Shark Tagger]

good report.. thanks