From Indian Pass to Grayton Beach

After being gone for almost a month I got back to Seagrove Beach, and weather permitting, back to fishing off Grayton tomorrow. My annual pilgrimage to Indian Pass is over and it's back to bottom fishing and filling up the box.

We had a big time (as always) over at the 'pass but the Tarpon bite was not near as good as usual this year. The "cold" fronts that came through in July and August ran a lot of fish off (they had shown in force the 1st of July) and had the ones that stayed seeming to be on a diet. The last few days or normal heat (for August) had the fish coming back and starting to chew just in time for me to have to leave.

I got to Tarpon fish with some of my family on Saturday afternoon for a couple hours (in between chasing Tripletails) and we had three come up after our baits but didn't get a hook to stick. Capt. Shaun Chalker was fishing right next to us and his crew was able to get one over 100 pounds in the air and fight it for about 45 minutes only to have a BIG hammerhead come in and eat it...... we had a great tarpon show for over 2 hours with hundreds of fish rolling all around us.

Luckily we had Tripletails to catch as well as Trouts, Redfish and the ever present sharks. Quite a few of my trips were booked to target triple tails from the gate. I ran several scallops trips as well with good results and happy folks. Scallopin' in St Joe Bay is pretty much going snorkeling in a huge , well-stocked aquarium!

My daughter Darcy "booked" me yet again for her birthday and was able to get another fine birthday Tripletail as well as a great scallop trip in this weekend.

This fellow has fished with me for years and booked a Tripletail trip this year. He got shots at 17 this fine day and we had 8 to eat. This one drew the short straw and got kept.
 

it's what's for dinner.
 

This fellow had never seen a Tripletail before. It's pretty easy to convert folks to sight fishing!
 

This young lady did great getting scallops, way more than mom.
 

Some more fine dinners in the making.
 

No Tarpon ? This fellow didn't seem to mind . we caught over 100 trout plus Redfish, jacks and skippies on three consecutive mornings before going and chasing Tripletails.
 

The rest of the crew caught fish too.
 

The birthday girl with her favorite present. Yes, she spots 'em, casts and does it all herself. I just drive the boat and net the fish.

The annual birthday trip with bags of soon to be scallop dinners. Anybody can have cake and ice cream... how many kids get to have fresh scallops at their party?

I'll have a report from Grayton up after the Labor Day holiday .