Naples, Ft. Myers, and Bonita Beach 08-07-12

Fishbuster Charters - Captain Dave Hanson reported, I had an offshore trip scheduled for Monday, but the rains of the weekend threatened to persist into Monday, so I postponed that trip to Tuesday morning.

I headed out about 18 miles on Tuesday with Ron Sticha and his twelve-year-old son, Noah. We used live shrimp to catch a variety of fish, including a 17-inch keeper hogfish, four keeper mangrove snapper to 14 inches, two keeper lane snapper, three keeper porkfish, three Spanish mackerel to 26 inches, grunts, and eight whitebone porgy keepers to 14 inches. We released fifteen additional mangrove snapper that were shorts, a few yellowtail snapper to 11 1/2 inches, a half dozen gag grouper to 20 inches, six red grouper to 18 1/2 inches, a triggerfish-short, and some blue runners.

Friday morning, 7/27, I headed offshore to about 18 miles west of New Pass with Joel Anderson, his nine-year-old son, Samuel, Joel's brother Chris, Chris' daughter and son-in-law, Ashley and Jonathan Metcalf, and Chris' other daughter, Amber Anderson. We used live shrimp and caught a good variety of fish, including three hogfish, one of which was a keeper at 14 inches, eight keeper lane snapper, four porkfish keepers, and five whitebone porgies, all around 14 inches. The group also released yellowtail and mangrove snapper shorts to 11 inches, a small Spanish mackerel, and gag and red grouper shorts to 18 inches.

Saturday, I headed out about twelve miles to fish in 35 feet with Dr. Meir Daller, wife Mie, and their two sons, Julian, age eight, and Brenden, age four. It's nice that gag grouper season recently re-opened because Meir got to keep the 23 1/2 inch gag he caught on a bait-fish. The family also used live shrimp to catch a 17-inch keeper hogfish, a couple of keeper porkfish, three keeper mangrove snapper, grunts and whitebone porgies. They released some shorter mangrove snapper, along with most of the fifteen Spanish mackerel they caught, keeping only four of those to 24 inches.

The two photos shown are as follow:

1.) Angler Mark Dreyer with a 12-pound bonito, caught on shrimp and released on a recent offshore Fishbuster Charter.

2.) Angler Julie Meng, with a 16-inch mangrove snapper caught on shrimp on a recent offshore Fishbuster Charter."