Fishbuster Charters’ Captain Dave Hanson reported,"Monday, 3/3, was a gorgeous day but, unfortunately, my party on schedule to fish offshore had confused their flight dates when they booked their trip, and didn’t realize it until the last minute. They were still up north! So, I got stuck at home painting the deck instead of fishing—I hate when that happens!



Tuesday, 3/4/14, was a beautiful, calm day offshore. I spent it fishing with frequent customers, Ron Musick and Eddie Alfonso, and this time, Ron’s brother, Stanley Musick was in town to go with us. We headed out about 29 miles from New Pass, and had steady action all day. The red grouper bite was hot, and we caught more than fifty of those, but they were shorts to 19 inches, and had to be released. But a 44-inch king mackerel made our day, along with twenty-five keeper whitebone porgies to 16 inches.

Wednesday, 3/5, I fished along the channel toward Wiggins Pass, in the backwaters, with Roy Mittman, Bill Geronomo, and friend, Mike. The guys used live shrimp to catch five keeper-sheepshead to 15 inches and two keeper-mangrove snapper. The released smaller sheeps and mangs.



David Bloomfield and Dave Price fished with me in the central part of Hickory Bay Thursday morning, 3/6, just ahead of some threatening weather predicted to hit the area by about 3PM. I could tell those thunderstorms would be here sooner than predicted, but I figured we could get the morning in, which we did. Thunder began rolling right about noon, and we headed in. By that time, the guys had boxed a 21-inch redfish and a 15-inch mangrove snapper, caught on live shrimp. We never got a single sheepshead, which was strange, but a 15-inch mangrove was also kind of strange for the bay—those bigger mangs are usually offshore.

The front that dumped so much rain on us Thursday left windy conditions behind for Friday morning, 3/7, when I fished the backwaters near the channel by Wiggins Pass with Robin Latham and his brother-in-law, Pete. Fishing was tough that morning, but the guys caught two keeper sheepshead to 14 inches, and released a half dozen smaller ones. They also caught and released two big stingray to ten pounds.

Sunday, 3/9, I fished with a delightful family—the Baums—who were celebrating a graduation. Darlys, her daughter, Becky and son-in-law, Joel, and her grandsons, Mason, Brady and Luke (the graduate) fished with me in spots between 18 and 23 miles west of New Pass. Grandpa Jerry stayed behind, as we already had a maximum of six passengers. He gets a special shout-out for being the official chauffer, and for helping with a computer issue my wife had that was preventing her from updating our website with the pics of the nice catches from the day’s trip. It was a calm day offshore, and the group did very well using live shrimp. They caught seventeen keeper lane snapper to 14 inches and seven keeper mangrove snapper to 16 inches. They added a 14-inch hogfish to the box, along with a 24-inch red grouper, a brace of 20-inch Spanish mackerel, a couple of whitebone porgies and a few grunts. Luke also battled and caught a 30-inch gag grouper, which had to be released due to closed season; nonetheless it was only right that the angler-of-honor caught the biggest fish! We released a dozen smaller mangrove snapper, about fifty red grouper shorts, and six porkfish shorts."