# Cape San Blas trip July 18-25



## Ctown (Jun 25, 2013)

We went last year and I fell in love with Cape San Blas. Last year I wade fished the bay, and fished a little from the surf. Only caught catfish from the surf, caught a few sharks, scallops, blue crabs, and 1 bluefish from the bay. 

This year I'm gonna take my kayak and plan to focus on fishing the bay only. 

I will update this thread through the week and report back what I'm catching.

Here is a pic of the biggest shark last year


----------



## Justin618 (Aug 18, 2013)

I wanna do a weekend trip there. Ive heard of some big boys caught there.


----------



## Dagwood (Oct 1, 2007)

Early morning,edge of grass, white floating mirrolure with a red head. You can thank me later.


----------



## rocklobster (Oct 1, 2007)

Watch the tides. Lows are going to be in the negatives all week. Good luck. We will be going the week after that - no negative lows. You'll have a blast fishing off of the kayak! We won't be fishing that much. Scallops and gigging flounder. Some great memories to be made there. Enjoy!


----------



## Ctown (Jun 25, 2013)

Dagwood said:


> Early morning,edge of grass, white floating mirrolure with a red head. You can thank me later.


Thank you for the tip. I have not been able to find a Mirrodine yet but I did buy a baby zara spook in the white with red head pattern, in addition to a pistol minnow made by H20 express that I got at academy sports. 

Looks like they are getting a good bit of rain in the morning, we should arrive in cape san blas tomorrow evening, my first chance to fish should be the following morning on Sunday. 

I will keep you posted.

I am not sure why my pictures are turned sideways, if anyone has a tip on how I can fix that it would be appreciated. I am uploading them straight from my camera roll on an iPhone 4


----------



## Ctown (Jun 25, 2013)

Ok day 1 of fishing is done. Only got to go this morning from just before dark till about 10:00. 

While it was still dark and I was paddling out to my spot I nearly ran over the top of a LARGE shark. It had to be at least 8 feet long and was in 2-3 ft deep water! 

Caught a 18" redfish (my first redfish ever), a ladyfish, and had a few more good bites. 

Moved down the road a ways and fished from the shore because the rain was right on top of me, and caught a 10" mangrove snapper and had a few more good pulls that didn't hook up. 

Caught all fish in the bay on live bull minnows I caught with a cast net.
Ate lunch at the Indian pass raw bar which was excellent. Spent the rest of the day with the family. 

Gonna hit it hard again in the morning.


----------



## k-dog (May 15, 2013)

keep us up to date I want to go there


----------



## holdisheadup (May 25, 2014)

Nice eatin and congrats on the first Red!!!


----------



## Ctown (Jun 25, 2013)

Day 2 is done. 

The start got off to a hard start, raining and wind blowing like crazy but I went anyway. Hooked one ladyfish, but it spit my bait out on the first jump. 

Spent some time with the family on the beach, then went back out about 3:30. There were tons of people scalloping around my spot, but I was able to catch an 18" speckled trout about 30 minutes in on a live pinfish. (First speckled trout-I am a rookie saltwater fisher). Caught 3 more speckled trout in the 12-13" range followed by a ladyfish that was a blast to catch!

I left the water by 5:30 because the tide was so low I knew I was gonna have to drag my kayak back in a ways.

Awesome day! The only fish I still really want to catch is a flounder, guess we'll have to see. 

After I got loaded up I drove over to St. Joe shrimp co. to see if they got any fresh whole flounder in and sure enough, someone had brought a mess in 45 minutes earlier. I bought the 2 biggest they had along with some crab meat stuffing. Tomorrow night we're having baked flounder- my favorite!


----------



## Ctown (Jun 25, 2013)

Here's the speck


----------



## rocklobster (Oct 1, 2007)

At least you are getting out! Nice spec! Might try a bull minnow for a flounder? Is anybody bringing in any scallops to speak of?


----------



## Ctown (Jun 25, 2013)

rocklobster said:


> At least you are getting out! Nice spec! Might try a bull minnow for a flounder? Is anybody bringing in any scallops to speak of?


I have heard that flounder prefer bull minnows, and I have been using them quite a bit, maybe I am not fishing the right areas or the flounder are out deeper because of all the rain? I don' t know.

Yes, I saw lots of people carrying bags filled with scallops today, that must be why so many people were out there. They were all over in this same area last year, I may take time to hunt up some before we leave.


----------



## johnboatjosh (May 19, 2008)

Look on Google Earth and find the bomb holes southeast of Black's Island. Drag bull minnows through the holes. That's probably your best shot at flounder.


----------



## Tricktoo (Oct 3, 2007)

We are here also. We didn't have much luck with the scallops only found a few.


----------



## Ctown (Jun 25, 2013)

johnboatjosh said:


> Look on Google Earth and find the bomb holes southeast of Black's Island. Drag bull minnows through the holes. That's probably your best shot at flounder.


Thank you for the suggestion! I looked up the bomb holes last night (don't know why I've never noticed them before) and that is where I went this morning. It was a loooong paddle from where I put in but I made it. I landed one large sail cat (biggest to date, and I caught plenty last year) and one ladyfish. Had multiple other fish that pulled drag but must not have hooked up on the circle hook. 

When I was paddling out to the holes I went right by a HUGE sea turtle that had 3 or 4 fish stuck on its shell. It just let me paddle right on by. I would guess this thing was like 4-5 feet long, it was really cool to get to see one. 

Me and the family are building a campfire on the beach tonight, so I am not fishing this evening, and plan to spend all day tomorrow with my kids and wife, so I will report back on Thursday and let you all know what happens. Thanks for all the good info!


----------



## johnboatjosh (May 19, 2008)

Ctown said:


> Thank you for the suggestion! I looked up the bomb holes last night (don't know why I've never noticed them before) and that is where I went this morning. It was a loooong paddle from where I put in but I made it. I landed one large sail cat (biggest to date, and I caught plenty last year) and one ladyfish. Had multiple other fish that pulled drag but must not have hooked up on the circle hook.
> 
> When I was paddling out to the holes I went right by a HUGE sea turtle that had 3 or 4 fish stuck on its shell. It just let me paddle right on by. I would guess this thing was like 4-5 feet long, it was really cool to get to see one.
> 
> Me and the family are building a campfire on the beach tonight, so I am not fishing this evening, and plan to spend all day tomorrow with my kids and wife, so I will report back on Thursday and let you all know what happens. Thanks for all the good info!


Hate you made the long paddle and didn't get any. That's fishing though, I guess.


----------



## Ctown (Jun 25, 2013)

johnboatjosh said:


> Hate you made the long paddle and didn't get any. That's fishing though, I guess.


Well, I've been looking back at google earth, and I've come to the conclusion that I was not fishin over the holes yesterday. I was on the east side of blacks island, but not far enough east. The spots I was fishing over we're large patches of sand in the grass beds which I was thinking were the holes. I am going back tomorrow morning and going to put in at the marina, it looks like a much better game plan than what I did yesterday. So basically I screwed up. Thanks again for the suggestion. :thumbup:


----------



## Ctown (Jun 25, 2013)

Day 3 of fishing-

Got to my bait catching spot this morning about 5:15, the tide was pretty much as high as I have seen it. I caught some STUD bull minnows in the cast net and was feeling good about what was to come. 

I put in at Presnells Marina boat ramp. The people that work there were gracious with info about the bomb holes, as well as some other tips about where to go to catch flounder. According to them, now is a bad time to try to catch flounder, because they have moved out into the gulf to spawn-so that made me feel better about not catching one yet. 

Soon after daylight I was blessed with a rainbow and the beautiful scene of blacks island in the distance.

I located a few good deep holes pretty early on, and it seemed like every hole I fished, I got bites. Wound up catching 6 catfish today, but no flounder. 

I came across a deep channel that looked promising, and every cast I made, something was taking the bull minnows, but was cutting my line. I tied on the only steel leader I had in my box, a 9 inch-and the next cast caught a 3 foot blacktip shark. A few minutes later, I landed another blacktip about the same size.

About 30 minutes later, I hooked up on the biggest shark of my life! On the first run it made after I hooked it, this thing nearly pulled all of the line off of my reel before I could slow him down, which only happened when I cranked the drag all the way down and applied pressure to the spool with my hand. Eventually me and the kayak were moving across the water at the same speed as the shark. I fought it for about 20 minutes I guess and it eventually sanded my line down past the leader and broke off. I got a few good views of it when it was in shallow water and I'm guessing it was around 6 or so feet long. I can not believe how strong that fish was!

I was only using 12lb test line, and I went back to the tackle store today and bought longer leaders, and stronger line. I am going back to the same spot in the morning to try to get revenge, I can definitely see how people get hooked on catching bigger sharks, they fight like nothing else I have ever felt. 

So todays tally was 6 catfish, 2 sharks, and one great battle with a big boy. I Love it!


----------



## Ridefish (Jun 8, 2014)

Very cool report


----------



## jhillman17 (Jul 17, 2014)

Yeah, live bait in that area this time of year will definitely attract and catch plenty of sharks. I've seen some in the 7-8' range cruising those flats... be careful with them in a kayak.

My go to flounder bait is usually a 1/4 or 3/8 oz jig, with a plastic trailer of some kind twister, shrimp or minnow... they withstand pin fish attacks... just cast out and bounce it along the bottom in those pot holes. I've found that if there are flounder around, they usually stick to the edges of the holes. Good luck and be safe!


----------



## Ctown (Jun 25, 2013)

jhillman17 said:


> Yeah, live bait in that area this time of year will definitely attract and catch plenty of sharks. I've seen some in the 7-8' range cruising those flats... be careful with them in a kayak.
> 
> My go to flounder bait is usually a 1/4 or 3/8 oz jig, with a plastic trailer of some kind twister, shrimp or minnow... they withstand pin fish attacks... just cast out and bounce it along the bottom in those pot holes. I've found that if there are flounder around, they usually stick to the edges of the holes. Good luck and be safe!


Thanks for the advice!

Looking back on yesterday, I could definately see how things could go bad really quickly when hooked up to one of those big sharks in a kayak. I thought hard about it last night, and decided to just go back to my original spot for my final morning of fishing. 

I caught 3 small sharks, 2 ladyfish, 3 catfish, and 2 speckled trout that were 15 and 18". It was a great way to end the trip. Thank you all for your advice and help while I was here. I gained alot of knowledge about the area and saltwater fishing while I was here.


----------

