Report for Destin, Florida - Nearshore

The flood gates have opened. The cobias, spanish, bluefish, jacks, and bait are all coming down the bar. Natures oddities are mixed in too. I saw 3 ocean sunfish(headfish) and lots of turtles this past week while cobia hunting. I also saw more pompano yesterday then I've ever seen in one day. One school had probably 3,00o# of fish in it. My week started and ended slow but was red hot in the middle. Monday I had a bay trip, I warned the folks the evening before that bayfishing was going to be slow with a cold front coming thru that night. We had a few trout bite but nothing to write about. (The cobias ran good that day). Tuesday I got to cobia fish on a 4 hour trip. The first 2 hours were just a boat ride and the last 2 were one long fish feast. We caught 16 blue fish, a spanish and 5 jacks about 25# ea. Oh, and 2 cobias that popped up in the middle of all the other. I offered to keep fishing but they wanted to go in and eat lunch! Wednesday brought a front that slowed the cobia down but we caught the only one we saw along with some bonitas. Thurs. brought a North wind and a skunk on cobia. Giant schools of bonita tho so the kids on board all got to catch some hard fighting fish. Fri was still a north wind and only a few fish. My 4 hr. trip and I found a good one that bottomed out my 60# hand scale. We'll call him 65#.I bekieve it was the biggest fish my angler had ever caught. Yesterday the wind blew even harder from the North with very few cobias being seen-I should have pompano fished. We only saw 1 cobia and didn't get a good shot at 'em before he went down. Today the wind came around due East and Howled ! I canceled my trip as it just wouldn't have been fun. By noon the surf was 4 ft. on the beach and building rapidly. The weather forecast has got it too rough to fish till probably Thursday. I hate missing booked cobia trips but this lets a bunch go by for next year. When the weather calms the run will be in full swing and we should start seeing wads of brown backed crabcrunchers swimming by.-- I can't wait-- Capt. Larry Pentel