Sailor50

Three of us left Joe's Bayou around 7:30, tried the Destin Harbor for bait, nothing, out to the CB Buoy, nothing, finally joined a few boat on the bar just east of jetty and got some bait with sabikis.

Went to our spot, was able to catch our limit of red snapper in about 3 hours. All were from 20 to 25". Had more hits but got cut off several times. We got this fellow too, thought it was another snapper on the way up, but what is it?



Stopped off at the jettys on the way back, really nothing going on.



A bunch of boats were at the small east jetty so we joined them, they were catching Spanish. We hurried up and tied a Gotcha on and got one, but he cut it, we hadn't takentime to put a leader on.



Then a charter boat cut right through the middle of the gaggle and we realized we were all in the middle of the channel, oops, time to leave.



Good day overall.





And, since you are going to ask, we were in 65-70'of water, no more than 1 1/2 mile off the beach. Most were caught on live spanish sardines hooked through the bottom near theirtail with a 3/0 circle hook, about 5' of 20# fluorocarbon leader, small swivel, and a 1 to 2oz barrell weight on spinning gear. Let it get to the bottom, up 5-10 cranks, and put the rod in the rod holder and just drifted over the spots, let the circle hooks do their job. Water temp 70 degrees, maybe 2' seas. Back to Joes Bayou around noon.

Oh, and on the way back, we saw this fish jumping out of the water chasing after some kind of bait fish, about a mile from the beach. Not a bonita, but similiar, mostly black, larger than a bonita, mayber3-4'. Doblackfin tuna come in this close?

jc1228

Those boats were anchored up at that finger jetty yesterday and were tearing up some pompano. you had to get close to the rocks where the hole is though.

Bodupp

I think your mystery fish is what locals call a kitty mitchell.

wrightackle

What an excellent report with a lot of great info. The water in destin pass is some kind of pretty. I know you said you were drifting over the spot and not anchoring but I was just wondering if you ever tried just freelining your live bait? I don't know what kind of current you were dealing with but it sure would have been interesting to present one of those sardines to a snapper without a weight. There might have been an old sow cruising around. That is one wild looking fish. It looks like his dorsal fin is even with his tail.

top

I'm not sure of the species of your crazy fish (maybe a snowy grouper), but it is obvious to me that what looks like the tail fin (caudal fin) is really the anal fin and the the fin on the top back is really the dorsal fin rays. This leads me to believe that either the fish is a mutant (developing incorrectly) or the fish's tail was bitten off at some point and it survived, healed, and developed without its tail fin. I've seen it happen before, but never to a grouper. And yes I'm a marine biologist, so I kinda know what I'm talking about.

sealark

The mystery fish is a Baby Warsaw

Get'n Wade

Great report!

lobsterman

It is a deformed juvy snowy grouper, warsaw have square tail and pec fins.

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wirenut

Dont know what that fish is but it is definatly an intresting catch.

Sailor50

OK, after looking around on the net and thanks to you guys comments, we believe that first fish is a Snowy Grouper who had its real tail bitten off. Guess it survived and healed as you see. We threw it back because it was a little "short" so it is still out there.

Also, after talking to some people and researching, we think we saw some Black Fin tuna busting about a mile east of the Destin jettys and say a mile off the beach on the way back. About 4'l ong and shaped like a foot ball. Didnt know they got in that close buta neighbor said they caught one years ago just off the beach.

Thanks for the inputs. Going to try to head out again on Tuesday and see what we can do.