Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Fishing, Fishing & More Fishing!!

This is what we started out in this morning.
But it wasn't as bad as it looked, we could see well enough to find some pretty good fishing spots. We had a great time, the Ladyfish were everywhere and trout and a few other fish put in appearances. Young man with first Ladyfish.


A Lady very happy about catching her Ladyfish.
We had the "Lizardfish Lady" on board catching several Lizard fish until she decided to become "Ladyfish Lady" and caught several Ladyfish.
Then near the end of the trip a Spanish Mackerel showed up and the Lady who caught it invited it to dinner. :)

The Fog had lifted just in time for the Sealife Encounter uncovering a beautiful blue sky with a few clouds and with the 83 degree temp, a very nice day. Water temp was 73 degrees and just a slight breeze out of the South. We did have a chance of rain today..6% up from 4% yesterday and 2% the day before..needless to say, we didn't worry about rain. No photos as camera on the blink. We had a great time with Dolphins swimming along side the boat so that they could get a good look at us. Everyone had fun dip net fishing at Picnic Island and pretty much caught the usual, crabs, lots of shrimp, pipe fish, hermit crabs and jellycombs. The deepwater net drag revealed may pinfish, file fish and striped burrfish (puffer). A nice afternoon boat trip with a great bunch of folks on board..we had fun..

Capt. Bob

Monday, February 21, 2011

Fishing. Wow! This turned out to be an athletic event with all the fish being caugh almost non-stop!

Everybody caught fish Mostly Ladyfish and Spotted Sea Trout.. We had a great time.

Sealife Encounter. The weather cannot be better. Working our way toward Picnic Island, we spent some time with several pods of Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin. The dip net catch at Picnic was a lot of fun with shrimp and baby pin fish and jelly combs and a some hermit crabs. Our deep water net drag caught a prize seahorse and a huge Blue Crab held by Mike Cohn the Naturalist. Another great trip!

Sunset. Went up the river for a change and immediately spotted a Bald Eagle. In the river, below the Eagle, were several doplhins swimming around. We spent most of our time watching the dolphins who became quite frisky. Hard to take our eyes off the dolphins to watch the beautiful Sunset over Pine Island, but it was a beauty! It's really been a great day here!

Capt. Bob

Sunday, February 20, 2011

The Dolphins did not disappoint!!

Sealife Encounter. Forgot my camera. Pcture this: a deep blue sky with a few puffy white clouds in the East and a gentle South wind and balmy 82 degrees. What a beautiful day! We set out on our afternoon adventure and very quickly encountered one of our favorites, the Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin. They put on a great show for us. We stopped at Picnic Island and did some dip net fishing and got a lot of shrimp, crabs, and pinfish. We had a nice ride to the outside of the causeway, where we saw more dolphins and watched a fisherman catch a nice size fish. Our deep water net drag provided many larger pinfish and some sugar trout and a couple of filefish.

Sunset trip. The dolphin did not dissapoint us, but we had to travel all the way to St. James City to find them. We had a beautiful Sunset, you should have been here!

Friday, February 18, 2011

The weather doesn't get much better!

Fishing: About 80 degrees with a light East wind. Water temp now 68 degrees. We began fishing at St. James City, PIne Island. Kindergartner "Owen", from North of Toledo, Ohio caught one of the first Spotted Sea Trout. The Lady caught a Ladyfish, and the Gentleman caught a pretty nice Spotted Sea Trout. Overall we had pretty good action with mostly Spotted Sea Trout, but Owens brother "Sean" had a large Spanish Mackerel on his line up to the boat and then broke off..and that broke our hearts.
Sealife Encounter: What a great day for an adventure on the water, departing Port Sanibel Marina! Almost as usual we encountered the Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin in the Intracoastal Waterway. We love to see these incredible creatures in the wild. After fishing with dip nets at Picnic Island the adventurers returned to the boat ready for the next action.

We took the boat to the Gulf side of the causeway and dragged the Otter Trawl net in about 4 feet of water through the grass beds. We caught a lot of Pinfish, a very delicate arrow crab, some Filefish and one of our favorites the Striped Burrfish. "Jack" of Fort Myers holds the larger of the Burrfish. Another great ADVENTURE!
Capt. Bob

Monday, February 14, 2011

Great Time on the Valentine's Sunset Cruise!

We had a beautiful day here in the low 70s with the wind 5 to 10 out of the NNW. The boat was stocked with beautiful roses, colorful cupcakes and lots of Valentine candy, including some chocolate covered cherries.

As we left the Port Sanibel Channel and entered San Carlos Bay, Dave Lamon the Host/Mate began passing around the goodies.
We soon encountered a lone Dolphin as we turned onto the Intra-Coastal, but it was not very interested in us and moved on. As we continued West on the ICW we found 5 to 6 Dolphins right in line with the Sunset. We got a little better look at them while taking in the beautiful Sunset over Pine Island. After the Sunset, with the after glow on the horizon, the air got quite chilly, but it didn't bother the folks on board as they had their Love to keep them warm! At the end of the cruise, each Lady passenger was presented a beautiful red rose.
Capt. Bob

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Fishing..Dolphins..Manatee & Birds..oh my!


A little cooler today with a high of 65 and about 12 MPH wind out of the North, but it was Sunny, so not so bad. Water temp at 71. We caught quite a few fish with the 15 folks on board. Mostly Sea Trout and Ladyfish.
One Spanish Mackerel one Redfish and a couple of those cute Southern Puffers. The Dolphins were a bit too close to the boat at times for our fishing. The cormorants continued swimming around us trying to steal the fish we caught...and they did a couple of times. The Royal Terns would swoop down and steal the bait right off our hooks from time to time (evidently must be hard for them to find fish)..


It was a challenge, but we had a good time. We were visited by a Manatee who seemed to be curious about us and hung around for a while. A good day mostly because we had such great folks on board.

Captain Bob

Friday, February 4, 2011

Caught lots of fish today!

Caught lots of fish with just 5 folks on board, we had a pretty good time catching lots of Ladyfish and Spotted Sea Trout. One Sugar Trout and one pinfish..and oh yeah a stingray. Pretty much non stop action..wish you were here!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Comb Jelly's, Pipefish, King Crowns & More found on the Sealife Encounter!

Before the Sea Life encounter, I kayaked out to the end of the Port Sanibel channel. At the end of the channel I found a flock of the "true Snow Birds" resting on a sand bar.
White Pelicans from way up North here for the Winter. Also, along the way, I noticed this brown Pelican being very idle on an Idle sign.

We had a great Sea Life Encounter. The Temp was about 75 degrees and water warmed up to 68 degrees. A bit breezy about 15 out of the SouthEast. A nice group of folks on board from Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois. Entering San Carlos Bay we stopped to look at our Osprey Nest.
Mom is sitting on the eggs now.. but it won't be long and we will get to see some fuzzy heads sticking up looking around to see what is going on. Continuing our journey we encountered a pod of very active Dolphins near Kitchel Key.
Our adventurers posed for a picture before setting out on the mission to collect creatures in the shallow grass bed at Picnic Island. They found lots of shrimp, and crabs, comb jellys, pipefish, kings crowns, and more. Our deep net drag turned up a beautiful Cowfish, a couple of female Blue Crabs, a File Fish and lots of Pinfish.

Capt. Bob