• Offshore Fishing Picking up in South West Florida

    Fishbuster Charters
    (239) 947-1688 http://fishbustercharters.com/Index.html fishbuster@comcast.net
  • Captain Dave Hanson is a native of southwest Florida. He has been fishing local waters since childhood, and has been fishing professionally for over fifteen years. He is Coast Guard licensed, and is a member in good standing of the Bonita Springs Chamber of Commerce. He has been quoted and featured in several national fishing magazines, and he also appears weekly in the fishing reports sections of the local paper.

  • Offshore Fishing Picking up in South West Florida

    Fishbuster Charters’ Captain Dave Hanson reported,"Monday, 1/20/14, was the first day in about two weeks that was suitable for offshore fishing. Successive, relentless weather fronts had forced me off the water for about a week, then into the backwaters for the next week or so. Another front, predicted to bring high winds and seas again was on the horizon, but Monday presented a brief window of opportunity.

    I headed out about twenty miles west of New Pass to fish with long-time customer, Tom Batcheller and his friends, Duncan Keirnes, Dave Curry, and Garry Jacobson. The guys had a very productive trip—using live shrimp for bait, they caught and released five gag grouper, four of which would have been keepers, had they been in season. Those four measured 22, 25, 26 and 29 inches. The guys also released four red grouper shorts that were all about 18 inches, along with a 15-inch mutton snapper, an 18-inch Spanish mackerel, a few short triggerfish, and a half-dozen short porkfish. As for fish to take home, they landed four keeper hogfish, two at 14 inches and two at 17 inches, along with three keeper porkfish, a dozen nice mangrove snapper to 16 inches, and a half-dozen whitebone porgies to 14 inches. On our way back to shore, we saw some of the pilot whales that were stranded off Lovers' Key beach, and took a few photos of that sad sight.

    Tuesday, 1/21, I fished just ahead of the next weather front. Winds and seas were calm until about 2PM, when they started kicking up in advance of a strong cold front due to hit our area in the evening. Ron Musick, Eddie Alfonso, and **** Arnett, all frequent and long-time customers, fished 18 miles west of New Pass with me, using live shrimp. The group caught and released six gag grouper to 23 inches, along with a 30-pound goliath grouper that Eddie battled and caught on light tackle. For food-fish, the guys boxed two mangrove snapper, 16 inches and 17 inches, a 15-inch hogfish, six keeper porkfish, eight whitebone porgies, and a mess of grunts.

    On Wednesday, 1/22, the chilly temperatures scared my planned inshore charter off, and they cancelled their trip. I must admit, it would have been cold on the water that morning, with lows of 38 degrees, and not much warming throughout the day. By Thursday, things weren’t much better temperature-wise, and they were decidedly worse as for conditions, with strong winds and rough seas offshore, and super shallow water in the bay. My planned offshore trip cancelled, as did Friday’s, when winds howled all day and seas were eight feet offshore.



    After three days of lost fishing time, I finally got out fishing Saturday morning, 1/25. Robert Plecki and his group decided it would be wiser to fish inshore than offshore, given the rough seas of the past couple of days and little faith that the two-to three foot seas predicted for Saturday would actually be the case. Bob Plecke, Jay Farrell, Alan Federman and Vince Slisz fished a catch-and-release trip with me, using live shrimp in lower Hickory Bay. The guys caught six sheepshead, two of which were especially nice ones at 17 and 19 inches. They also caught a 16-inch trout and a five-pound stingray.

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