Fresh Yankeetown Fishing Reports

First of all I have to say what a gorgeous day it was out in God's Country yesterday! It's always a blessing to fish with my good buddy John, but we both commented how it was a welcome change not to have to battle the wind all day. That being said the Redfish bite was spectacular yesterday. There was lots of bait everywhere and the Redfish were chewing. From the first stop on, we were hooking up with quality Reds. We didn't want to over fish any one spot because I have charters coming up, so as soon as we caught one or two slot fish at a particular location, we would move again. We caught eight nice slot Redfish and over 20 Redfish total, which shows how healthy our Red fishery is. If we'd have stayed on the spots longer I'm sure we would have easily doubled our keeper size production. Also caught some nice Black Drum, Sheepshead, and John caught a few nice keeper size Flounder. Unfortunately the Flounder is out of season right now until the end of the month so they all went back in the pond. We kept some Redfish, Black Drum, and Sheepshead for dinner, but the majority of the fish went back to fight another day. It's always a blessing fishing with John as we have a ton of fun, catch a lot of fish, and bust each other's chops all day?!

Fished with my good friend John yesterday in the Gulf of America. The Redfish are really starting to show up now. We caught them in all size ranges, including some nice slot fish and overslot fish. We caught and released Redfish, Black Drum, Flounder, and Jack Crevalle. John kept one nice middle slot fish for dinner. We threw a lot of different baits, but live shrimp from Captains Cove on a jig head seem to be what they preferred today. Stopped by Brooks Dockside Seafood food truck and picked up my favorite blackened grouper BLT sandwich along with an order of blackened shrimp tacos to bring home to my wife which topped off another incredible day in God's Country!

I first met Tom a couple month's back at the Tampa Airport . He was waiting for his daughter, and I was waiting for my wife, who coincidentally happened to be on the same delayed flight from LA. We got to talking and realized we both love to fish, and I told him what I do for a living and let him know how wonderful our fishing is here on the Nature Coast. Man, The Good Lord really has a way of bringing the right people into your life. He contacted me soon after and set up a 1/2 day fishing charter for himself and his good buddy Vong. It turned out to be such a blessing to have these guys on the boat yesterday. As I have said many times before when you spend time fishing together you get to know each other very well, and we discovered we all had a lot in common, especially our love for fishing, and construction as well. These guys caught a lot of fish, including Redfish, Seatrout, Black Drum, Mangrove Snapper, Sand Trout, and Jack Crevalle. After the charter, I sent them to Blackwater Grill Yankeetown for lunch. They stopped back by the marina afterwards and let me know that lunch was delicious, and that they talked about how much fun they had and decided to book another trip in September... Looking forward to another trip with Tom and Vong!!! You won't hear me say this very often but thank you Lord for the delayed flight in Tampa?

I had a great father and son team on the boat Wednesday. The rest of the crew could not make it, but these guys took full advantage of having the bite to themselves. Cliff and Pressley caught over 30 Redfish, a bunch of Black Drum, Flounder, Pompano, Snook, Mangrove Snapper, Jack Crevalle, and Sheepshead. They had some nice slot fish mixed in with the smaller ones, which kept them busy the whole trip. Pressley also caught his first Redfish and Black Drum, which is always cool! Looking forward to having them back again in the fall. We were able to dodge the storms, catch a lot of fish, and have some great conversations along the way, which always makes for an amazing day in God's Country... such a blessing!!!

The good Lord just keeps bringing me these incredible families to fish with! Yesterday, I had Billy, his wife Missy, their son Joel, and his wife Kitty. We got our first slot Redfish first thing in the morning, and then followed that up with another one soon after. It was pretty cool as this was both Billy and Joel's first Redfish. To do this on Joel's birthday trip was a great way to celebrate! Went on to catch Seatrout, Spanish Mackerel, Flounder, Whiting, Jack Crevalle, Mangrove Snapper, and a few more Redfish throughout the rest of our time together on the water. It was truly another blessed day fishing the Nature Coast!

It was a privilege and a ton of fun to host this wonderful family from Germany on a charter yesterday. Chris, his wife Sophia, and their two boys, Gustav and Anton, caught a lot of fish yesterday, including about 25 to 30 Redfish. Although a lot of them were small, there were a few nice slot fish mixed in. Since they were traveling around Florida , we only kept a few fish and released the rest. Along with some nice eating size flounder, they also caught about 15 to 20 Jacks, which are all over out there right now. Other species included Mangrove Snapper, Shark, and Black Drum. They kept the Captain busy on this half day trip, and I enjoyed every minute of it! This was Anton's birthday trip, and he wanted to catch something big that pulled a lot of drag. I set him up on a rig to hopefully catch a shark, and although that did not happen, he hooked into a very large Ray that was bigger than a trash can lid, and the battle was on. He just turned 10, but boy, that kid handled the fish well and got him to the boat all by himself with a little bit of coaching. All in all, it was another successful fishing adventure in God's Country and I am just so grateful to be able to once again have folks like this on my boat!!!