September 18th 2020 – Some September Yellowtail and Groupers. After Tropical storm Sally rushed by us to go mess up everyones day in Pensacola Florida I had some clients in town that were into some reef fishing for one of their three days with us here at Dream Catcher Charters. The weather was pretty decent but still a bit windy yet from the bottom end of the storm pulling it’s angry energy from the lower Gulf of Mexico. Winds were 15 + and seas were 2-4 ft and pretty close out of the South with an outgoing tide all day.
After over harvesting pin fish from my bait traps we had plenty to work with for some good grouper fishing on the patch reefs. With the wind and current against each other the boat was on a pretty steady drift. The grouper were not responding well to jigs with or without a live bait so we used some long leaders to get the job done and put some grouper in the box.
Later in the tide I headed to some nicely populated yellowtail snapper grounds. I had four anglers and we used nothing but artificial lures to catch some quality yellowtail snappers. Once my anglers got used to casting my lighter spinning rods we were Game On wearing them out. I usually keep a 15″ boat size limit just to bump up the filet sizes and do my part in conservation. This was not a problem as we filled the cooler with 15 – 24″ Yellowtails. 4 bag limits, plus two that I must have missed in my count, later we headed in after a nice long day of catching.
My New Mercury 300 V-8s
This was my first day of fishing my 36ft Yellowfin with the new Mercury 300v-8 Fourstroke outboard motors. I was super impressed with the way they carried my boat with a good bit of load and 4 guys fishing. Notably it got a little rough out there and I had to run slower to prevent the beating. This was no problem for the v-8 they held my boat on plane at 22 mph in the slop. Read about my engine swap from 400 Verado To 300 V-8 Verado.
Reef Fishing Forecast
Reef fishing will be very good all through the fall into the winter. They cut off our Atlantic grouper season on January 1. Full days gain the best results as it allows me to run to the more productive spots.
