Perdido Key to Cape San Blas
Includes Pensacola, Gulf Breeze, Fort Walton Beach, Destin, Panama City and Port St. Joe.

Oct. 17-20

Panhandle

The great thing about this time of the year is the cool sunny days. The bad thing is the higher north winds the cooler weather produces. In other words, the weather last week made getting out a bit of a challenge. Bay fishing was less of a challenge than fishing Gulf, as long as you find shoreline that is leeward to the winds.

Inshore

Speckled trout, redfish, Spanish, lady fish, bluefish and flounder are on the flats through out the Panhandle. We had pretty good success fishing White Point just West of the mid bay bridge in Chotawhatchee bay. This area offered us calmer water to fish. Speckled trout and Spanish were hitting on white no.2 clouser minnow flys tide to bubble rigs. Most anglers use popping corks and light jigs for this type of presentation, but I’ve found that the clear water in our area along with the primary forage right now (bay anchovy) necessitate that I use clear casting bubbles. The reds and flounder all came on gulp tip quarter ounce jigs worked around potholes and then slowly bumped across the bottom. Take 2 or 3 minutes to work your baits, don’t be in such a hurry that you spook everything or you will miss a lot of fish. Bottom line slow down, slow down you drift and slow down your retrieve to increase your hookup rate. Bull reds are cruising the Destin pass around the bay cones on the incoming tide. Just be sure to use 30 to 40 pound braid when fishing this area to avoid cutoffs due to the high numbers of juvenile groupers around these structures.

Offshore

Redfish, spanish, lady fish, blue fish, whiting and pompano have been pretty steady along the beaches. Further offshore the hot grouper and snapper bit is still sizzling, and not just the quantity, but the quality of fish is the best I‘ve ever seen. Don’t forget to drop a double hook rig for trigger fish either, they are just as thick as the red snapper. Be sure that you only keep triggers 14 inches or over because of the new regulations as of Aug 4th. Flounder are starting to show up around the near shore wrecks and bridge rubble just outside the Destin pass, right now they are on the small side but I‘m still catching a few keepers when I target them. Bull minnows, tiger minnows and 3 to 4 inch pinfish rigged on a 18 inches of 20lb fluorocarbon Carolina rig with just enough weight to keep it on the bottom has produced the best bite. Kings are still around the passes along with bonito and the occasional blackfin tuna. With the rough weather this week I have not been able to get very far off shore and neither has any of my sources. I look at it this way, if I miss a few days due to the weather everyone else has also and that just means that the fishing may even be better.

Tight lines,

Capt. Rob Cochran

By Captain Rob Cochran

Rob6956@aol.com | 850-621-6956

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