SW FL-Bonita Beach: Good Variety Offshore; Snook & Reds Inshore; Tortugas-Bound!

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[size 2]On a catch-and-release trip to the artificial reefs off Bonita Beach on Tuesday, 5/27, long-time customers Pat Fitzgerald and sons, Jimmy, Tommy and Peter, along with friend, Brendon, caught a smorgasbord of fish on live shrimp. We had steady action all morning, and released two keeper-sized pompano, lots of whitings, lots of gag grouper shorts to 19 ½ inches, seven keeper-sized flounder and lots of grunts and keeper-sized mangrove snapper. I don’t know how many fish we caught in all, but a couple of Pat’s young sons were keeping count of their catches and each had between 30 and 40. [/size]
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[size 2]Friday morning, fishing with Bill and Debby Wright in central Estero Bay, we caught two keeper redfish just under 20 inches and released a nice 26 inch snook (see photo) along with mangrove snapper, cravalle jack and a stingray. The snook ran the length of the boat and was a good fight on 8 pound test. [/size]
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[size 2]The other photo shown is of a 16 inch flounder caught on shrimp on a recent reef trip.[/size]
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[size 2]I am fishing the Dry Tortugas this week and hope to have some "Tortuga Tales" by my next post.[/size]
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