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!
