Forecast/Report : Cuberas, Pelagics, Tiburon Grande

It doesn’t take much in the summer to make me happy once you have bluewater but damn if the Barracudas and Sharks didn’t do their best to steal the day.

When we first got to the spot in deep water we were looking for a good show of Yellowtail Snappers on the depth recorder which is usually a good sign that there are going to be other fish in the water column.  Underneath the Yellowtails is almost always at least one decent sized Black Grouper and as you saw last week if you are patient you can sometimes get a shaft into him.

On this trip we had Nolan, Bubba, Gray and Captain Cory and despite the rough weather and front passing the night before the water was crystal clear and the seas were calm.

With the current we tried two different tactics first anchoring over the spot and then drifting over the area to see if we could pick up a few more fish that were too far upcurrent to swim up there and get.

We had Mangrove Snappers up to 8 lbs, Yellowtail Snapper in the 3-4lb range, African Pompano, Permit and Amberjacks in sight on almost every drop but with the incredible vis it was difficult to close the distance.

Even deeper, and this is the norm for this time of year on the West Coast of Florida, was a school of Cubera Snappers.

Nolan had a good chance at a one on one of his first dives but it wasn’t until the amberjacks closed in that we were able to plant a solid shaft in one.

In the deep water the Float line/bungey combo with a single float was enough to slow him down so that he couldn’t get to the bottom before I hit the surface.  With a Reel… any little thing goes wrong and in 180 feet of water you are going to lose your rig, believe me!

On the way in we checked a public wreck that was rumored to have a couple sharks on it but also some good snappers.

Well, the sharks were there in full force and within seconds of hitting the water we had a trio of 7-10 ft Bull Sharks with heads so big we at first thought they were Tiger Sharks when they came up out of the gloom.

I’d like to think I am pretty comfortable with sharks but when you have giant bulls coming up to you as soon as you break 20 feet and with only 30 ft of visibility and then at 50 feet all you can see is dozens of sharks…. I don’t feel very comfortable.

Both Nolan and Gray had great shots on big Permit but within seconds massive Bull Sharks appeared and devoured them in scary display of power. I had my head out of the water looking for Nolan and could hear the smashing and crunching of the jaws more than 50 feet away. Not cool!

Needless to say unless you stoned the fish you were shooting at it got eaten in short order.

All in all a fun day on the water but not the epic adventure we were looking for and the barracudas and sharks are in full force on most of the big structures from Clearwater South to Fort Meyers right now so watch yourself and your fish!