Capt Wes’ Fishing Archives: Jan 06 - July 07

Got a chance to go with Team Outcast on a cobia fishing trip. Here we see Capt Tommy and our good friend Allen discussing how to drink a cup of Joe.

Chris is making sure he has clean glasses to better spot a fish.

Fisher after his 3 mile swim. It seems after we caught a double on cobia and then tagged and released both fish, Fisher was not happy and decided to go over board and retrieve the fish. Three miles down the beach we discover Fisher is not in the boat. We back track and find this little black head glidding through the water.

Allen with the third cobia caught during the trip. A nice 40lb fish!

A wonderful trip.

God Bless
Capt Wes

Here is Claudia with a nice dinner size redfish.

I caught up with Bill and Wil for some afternoon fishing.

Here is Bill showing off one of his catches for the day.

God Bless
Capt Wes

Another beautiful day on the water with my good friends Gary, Dave and their friend Matt.

Matt is no stranger to catching fish as he quickly boats this nice spanish mackerel on a speck rig trolled at 3 knots.

Dave boats his first spanish of the morning.

Gary finnally gets into the action.

Here is the biggest spanish of the day caught by Matt.

A slow day and fair catch on another beautiful day on the water.

God Bless
Capt Wes

Now that is two pretty smiles from Alley and Bailey as we begin a wonderful day of fishing.

Todd is the first to catch a fish on a freelined shrimp using a 3/0 light circle hook on a 17lb floracarbon leader.

Alley catches a speck before Bailey. I believe there is a little competition here!

Bailey bags a nice spanish using a speck rig trolled at 3 knots behind the boat.

We are having fried spanish for dinner

God Bless
Capt Wes

Well we started out with a beautiful full moon.

Here stands my crew of Bill, Chris and Matt.

As the sun rises Bill catches a nice speck on a freelined shrimp.

Matt has a nice fish on.

After a long battle on 10lb test line Matt lands this 27″ red.

Matt quickly boats a speck for dinner.

Bill is now fighting another fish.

Finnally Chris is on the board with this speck.

Our dinner for tonight.

In the afternoon my good friend Dr McKnight with a nice speck on a freelined shrimp.

Ryan will not let grand pa get to far ahead on catching fish. Here is a nice speck.

Doc with a 27″ redfish on a freelined shrimp.

Fried specks for dinner!

God Bless
Capt Wes

Well, what can I say. We were on the back side of a full moon and the fish bite was 50/50!

On April 12th my new friends Frank, Mike and Deb started out with a beautiful sun rise.

After the sun rise the fish bite never awakened. We were blanked, skunked or goose egged. We did get a nice show from the Blue Angles.

April 13th was a different day. I was with my new anglers Russ and his granddaughter Chelsea. I forgot my camera but the fish bite was much better.

Russ won the dollar bet with 10 nice spanish to Chelsea’s 5. We caught a great Blue Angel show to finish out the morning.

April 14th was another off bite for the fish. Below are Dwight and Christopher hoping for better fortunes from two days ago.

Below is Christopher with one of 4 strikes we had that morning.

As Christopher said “atleast we did not get skunked!”

I met up with Carter and Debra after dropping off Dwight and Christopher. We met with the same drought as earlier this morning. No Fish!

Today April the 15th opening day of snapper season. I could not find a parking spot for my trailer. Every boat in Pensacola must have been launched before the sun came up.

I told my good friends Stan and Les we needed to head up the river to get away from all this boat traffic. They agreed and off we went.

The wind blew hard from the SW and the bay was pretty rough! Les got into the action pretty quick and very often. The speck bite was very good for a couple of hours. Sorry, not any pictures. I was fishing some very secret spots.

Below is our supper for tonight.

We ended the day with

12 specks

A much better bite!

God Bless
Capt Wes

I fished with two new anglers Dan and Randy. Our goal was to catch any fish that would stretch the line. The wind from the E was going to make the fishing day very difficult. The incoming tide was neaping.

Due to the fast movement of our drift we started out with the catch 2000 jr shown below. After a couple of drifts Randy landed our first and only speck.

After watching the Blue Angles fly we decided to try and make it to the gulf and troll for spanish. After about 30 minutes of trolling we hit a big school of spanish. Below is Dan with a nice spanish caught on a 1/4 bucktail jig.

Randy followed siut on the next pass.

We caught plenty of spanish until our time ran out. Below is our stringer.

We ended the day with:

20 spanish

1 speck

Until our next trip.

God Bless
Capt Wes

This is my new friend Ed. I met Ed at the Outcast spring sale. Ed wanted to learn how to fish Escambia Bay and how to use artificials.

The weather was beautiful with a light wind from the ESE. The tide was super low but starting to produce an incoming tide.

We used 7m mirrolures, which I caught a nice 24″ redfish on, chugbugs, catch 2000’s and soft body jigs.

The action came on the jig shown below.

Here is Ed catching his first fish on an artificial lure. What a stud! Ed was thinking a mount.

I got into the action with this nice 19″ speck.

Ed caught a nice 15″ speck. Another first for him.

Below a few for the dinner table.

Our finale stringer count:

12 specks

1 redfish

3 croakers

All in all we taught Ed how to track these fish as they come out of their winter homes heading for their summer homes. How to use the correct lures and where to use those lures. Our next trip is to learn how to fish Pensacola Bay with S25’s.

God Bless
Capt Wes

Today I fished with Rob who is from South Africa and his two sons Mark and Mike. It was a beautiful day on the water but the fishing was just that fishing.

Rob was in search of any fish that would pull his fly line.

After several hours of fishing the flats in Santa Rosa Sound Rob tied into a nice speck. Sorry once again I left the camera in the truck! Several hours later no luck.

We ran to Ft Pickens pier anchored up and I quickly caught a nice pompano. The sons had sevral strikes and managed to boat a small spade fish. The boats around us were catching a few sheephead and pompano.

Rob finished out the day catching a large squid on his fly.

A great day of fishing with a poor day of catching. This is why they call it fishing not catching!

God Bless
Capt Wes

I fished with my good friend Curtis today. The wind was blowing out of the NE at 15 mph. The skies were clear and we had plenty of pig skins to eat!

We tried the ICW most of the early morning and Curtis jacked up a nice 3lb speck using a catch 2000 jr. I left my camera in the truck but you will see the speck in the stringer portion of the report.

We moved into the Big Lagoon and I got into the action with a nice speck on live strimp.

Curtis below is watching his line closely waiting for that slot redfish to take his shrimp. “He’s on!” Curtis yells. We have a stud rockfish which completes the garbage can slam ( rockfish, lizardfish and catfish ).

Soon after the rock fish Curtis bows up with a healthy redfish only to have a piling wrap break him off.

We drifted the Pass and caught one real nice sheephead but the bite was not there and we left for the gulf.

We started at the ranger station and moved slowly along the shore looking for schools of pompano. We saw a dozen huge sharks and two small schools of jacks.

We then anchored up at the Ft Pickens pier and it did not take long and Curtis was bowed up once again.

Curtis’s first pompano!

Here is a nice stringer to end the day:

Until our next fishing trip!

God Bless
Capt Wes