Capt. John 10 Hour Offshore Saturday August 6, 2016

With Captain Johnny Williams at the wheel the party boat Capt. John left Pier 19 with 82 of us anglers aboard. Again the target species were Atlantic spadefish and bonnethead shark with ling and kingfish looking to be added.

Three platforms were fished from 13 to almost 30 miles to the ESE of the island. With clear green water having only a one foot swell fishing conditions were on the excellent side, except for the heat. The air was definitely  hot, hot, hot!

As was expected the spadefish and bonnetheads dominated the days catch. Red snapper were also caught and quickly released. The biting was on, from near the surface to the bottom. The Atlantic spadefish in particular were in the top 10 feet or so, the “red ones” were caught thru the water column and the bonnetheads were at or very near the bottom.

While I’m not a freshwater fisherman, and I’ve only seen crappie fishing on TV, there looks to be a parallel to me with the Atlantic spadefishing. The look of the catching and numbers caught at times is sort of like them being a saltwater crappie, biting in numbers, fun to catch and tasty on the table. If you like crappie fishing, the Atlantic spadefish is a saltwater close equivalent. While the numbers caught today were impressive imagine what they might have been if “Darth Spader Williams” had been aboard.

Todays catch species and numbers were:

487 Atlantic spadefish

69 Bonnethead shark

1 Lane snapper

1 Kingfish

1 Mangrove snapper

1 Stingray

3 Black drum

6 Gulf trout

Jose Polanco group of 18 from Madisonville, were out on their annual Capt. John trip for his Grandfathers birthday, was Agapito Reyes, when I grow up I want to fish on my 81st birthday too, Happy Birthday Agapito! The group had nice spadefish and bonnethead catches along the released red snapper.

Hak Lim group of 10 that included wife Danielle, all of Dallas, had numerous Atlantic spadefish and bonnethead shark. Jett Smith also had the groups, and boats, only mangrove snapper. Danielle’s biggest spadefish was also the biggest on the boat at about 13″ long.

Patrick Lemire, Texas City, you don’t have to read many of the reports to see that my great interest is targeting ling after red snapper closed. Today was a continuation of that interest. Nothing spectacular came of it today but I did catch one of 30 inches which were released to grow and fight again on another day. Three ling approached from my left, I tossed out a couple of “freebees” and flipped a hooked squid into the mix, it ate a free one, then the one with my hook in it and the scuffle, not a fight, was on. At least the plan worked, as it has many times in the past, a few more inches of ling length would have made it a lot better. Incidentally, from the studies I’ve seen and read ling can grow to 30 pounds in their first year of life. The real personal hi-lights of the trip were seeing Jose and his Grandfather Agapito again along with meeting and fishing with Hak and his wife Danielle. That was a nice balance, seeing return fishermen and meeting, talking and fishing with new and equally interesting and nice folks like Hak and Danielle who were fishing just to my left. The throwback ling was the period to the trip.

See you on the Capt. John!

Patrick Lemire