August 2, 2013 "Bye, Bye July!"

Welcome to another addition to Chubby's Dolphin Tales! What a spectacular month we had in July here in Southwest Florida! Yes we had a lot of rain and it actually interfered some with fishing (too much fresh water coming into the bays), however, we still managed to catch fish and have fun!

That's what we are all about here at Chubby's! FUN! Family fun for sure! This installment of our blog features a charter with one of our friends and her family from our past growing up here in the Ft. Myers area and a great family from Troy Illinois. 

I welcomed Belinda who grew up with Sonja and I and attended school with us here in Ft. Myers. She brought her son Keaton, and Adam, one of Keaton's friends for a fishing charter. We met early in the day after I spent time preparing the boat for our fishing adventure. I snapped a wonderful shot of the rising sun as I traveled over the Matanzas bridge to get my bait for the day. Although the shrimp have been small (typical summer sizes) I was still able to get some good ones from Gut's and Glory bait shop on San Carlos Blvd. 

I had to buy ice from 7-11 today.  Shucks! You don't realize how convenient it is to get ice from a industrial size ice maker (thanks to my friends at Dairy Queen on Ft. Myers Beach) until the machine is broke! AHHHHHH! 

Anyway, after getting everyone settled on the boat and going over the standard Coast Guard safety chat with my guests we headed out. What a great morning for fishing. We fished the bay between Sanibel and Pine Island, caught fish, although the water was so dark I could not even see the shrimp in the live well. It would be great to get our clearer water back and until the water stops coming down that river from the big lake I guess we will just have to endure it. I'm not complaining about rain just need to have some control over the water. 

Keaton and Adam had many opportunities to catch fish, landed several, kept only on Spanish Mackerel, but had a good time being on the water. We saw many species of fish come over the gunnels on this day. Lady fish, mangrove snapper, Spanish mackerel, BIG pin fish and catfish of course.

We spent some good time on the water, got rained on some by an early afternoon squall, but made it back to the dock safe and sound! Thanks Belinda for booking with us today. It was my pleasure to have you on board Chubby's Tropical Adventures!

Another adventure on board Chubby's was with Mendy, John and their cool son Zach. this time I decided to try  the Gulf of Mexico along the shore and out on one of our local reefs to see if we could get into more clear water.  Although the water did seem better I still struggled some to put them on fish right away and eventually moved on out to the reef. 

We were a little more successful there catching some sugar trout, whiting, mangrove snapper and Mendy even hooked up on a nice 30 pound shark. We didn't get the shark over the gunnel because it dehooked itself right at the boat as I reached down with my big ole net, however, she worked that shark well and got to see it! Good work Mendy!

After awhile on the reef I decided to head into Estero Bay to fish the mangroves and things heated up for us there. Snook, redfish, mangrove snapper, and yes catfish, were on our hooks many time's. I was impressed with the size of the mangrove snapper today and were able to put several in the cooler as well as a nice 20 inch red. The shrimp were excellent today so we ended up fishing them well and by the end of the trip I was satisfied that we had a ok day on the water. 

Mendy was a little more excited about the dolphins I believe and we were able to get a "Class A" show from a pod that got into our wake to entertain us for a bit.

I want to thank all my special guests for being with me on these trips. I appreciate you all and welcome to to join us again for another adventure on Chubby's Tropical Adventures!

July 23, 2013 "More fun with Chubby's"

July has been a pretty busy month, especially after the first week when the rains put a crimp in the tours. 

We are especially happy about being able to share our adventures with wonderful families like Volkar, Sabina, Larissa and Maria from Germany. Volkar and his family joined us for a Dolphin Tour on a beautiful afternoon on Estero Bay. Having spent time in that wonderful country when I was in the Air Force, I grew to love these people and their land and customs. Europe is a great place to visit, the country side towns offer so much to see and experience, and Germany was one of those country's that you could spend tons of  time just exploring and enjoying the locals and their way of life. Thank you guys for joining me on this tour I hope to see you again in the future!

This week also offered a wonderful fishing charter for Brandyn and his friends, Brandon, Jeff, Chris, Alex and Brian. This was a trip that was given to him by his lovely bride Jessica for his birthday present (his birthday was June 21). We left the dock right after the early morning storm ran through Ft. Myers Beach. I spent about an hour preparing the boat, getting bait, ice, drinks and trying to dry out the boat before the gentlemen got there but the rain kept coming and coming but around 8:30am the weather broke. 

We headed out for our adventure and was fishing within about 30 minutes. We used live shrimp in the beginning to catch trout on the grass flats and while the guys were working those baits I fished a sabiki rig to pull in a couple dozen pin fish we moved on over to the mangroves to hunt for some big red fish and snook. And boy did we hook up! 

Although we only landed one lunker worthy of a couple nice fillets, we lost an even bigger bull red at the boat when the net missed at the last haul and the 15 pound braid broke off as it slid along side of that monster fish! Chris, the lucky guy to fight that one for a few moment's later on would be disappointed again when a HUGE, and I mean a HUGE snook grabbed a large chunk of cut bait and moved like a bulldozer up into the mangroves. I must admit that one was a little too large to do much with it in the distance he had to work. The fish slid under the mangrove roots never to return. We had a choice to wait him out or try to bull dog him out and the later won out so we attempted to coax him out breaking the line. Well Chris, you didn't land either of your big fish but you gave us all a thrill!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRANDYN! Hope you had fun.

So the day, week and month moved on and Chubby's Tropical Adventures added a few new friends and smiling faces to our portfolio. Thank you all for choosing us for an adventure and thank you for making your Captain smile. 

God bless you all and see you again in the future!

"RAIN RAIN GO AWAY!" July is the wet month!

Well July has been very "abnormal" from a weather pattern but it is improving! For the first 5 days we had consistent, all day rains that put a damper on our trips but still we survived and now that we are in a normal pattern (mornings and evenings great, mid afternoon rains) we are back to doing our good stuff!

Had a great day out on the water today with Al and Deb and their girls Hannah and Mollie. We had a fabulous dolphin show and had them in our wake for the longest time. The weather was perfect for a "Round the Island" cruise and frankly I was not in too big of a hurry to get back.

We toured the island for these folks. It is there first time in the area so I gave them a "sightseeing" adventure that left them with local knowledge of the restaurants, history, nature and fun of Ft. Myers Beach!

Thank you guys for joining me today. I could not have had a better time. 

Come back to see us again!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my wife Sonja!