Panhandle Fishing Report

For Great Fishing Tips "Click Here"

AJ AND GROUPER
By, Key Loco, 4/3/08

I had an itch and a one day pass burning a hole in my pocket and Thursday's forecast was looking good. I had no trouble scaping up a scurvy crew for the day inspite of it being a workday (big surprise). We left the pumps at 0600, wallets $136 lighter and we were off into the fog. Seas were a true 1 foot and never got worse than 2 foot all day. Ran out 23 miles to pick up some livies and I'm guessing we left with around 30 total: Ruby's, squirrelfish, sand perch, and one lonely lizardfish. Headed 11 more miles from there to 145' and picked up 4 A.J.'s within an hour. Flipper decided he wanted my last one more than me but he didn't get it. We decided it best to pick up and head to the 200' mark to see what was stirring. Worked the area for awhile and made some passes through the hardbottom areas and picked up some decent gags and a huge 42" A.J. to finish off our limit. There wasn't a shoulder left in socket on the entire boat! All in all a we had 5 A.J.'s, biggest was 42", five Gags, biggest was 33", and a Lane Snapper.

COBIA REPORT
By Will2Fish, 3/29/08

Fished all the way to PC Saturday and didn't see a fish. Sunday we ran down to Navarre pier and started fishing west. Ended up 1 for 3, with 1 no eater, and broke one off. First time I've ever broken a fish off. Reeled up the to the leader and it looked like someone cut the line with scissors right above the hook. So I looked at the pack of hooks, Owner 8/0 straight hooks with offset eyes made to be snelled on, and i noticed that not all the eyes were completely closed and very sharp where the eye meets the shaft. I would advise anyone who uses Owner hooks to check this carefully, almost positive it cost us our fish Anyways, we put one in the boat and thats what matters.