Capt. Si Nelson with an unexpected permit caught in Destin Harbor.
October 13, 2023
By Capt. Mark Hotza
Perdido Key to Cape San Blas Capt. Mark Hotza discusses fishing from Perdido Key to Cape San Blas, including Pensacola, Gulf Breeze, Fort Walton Beach, Destin, Panama City and Port St. Joe
Action Spotter Podcast
October 13 - 15 Editors Note: Signatures Needed! The "Right to Clean and Healthy Waters" petition needs 900,000 signatures by November 30 to get on the 2024 ballot. Learn more here: http://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org/
Well, it’s officially fall. These cool fronts have actually been cool and the water is adjusting accordingly. I’ve been in bibs and a jacket most mornings on my ride across the bay.
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As most of you know, October in our area hosts the Destin Fishing Rodeo, so every fish caught could be worth prizes, money and fame. There’s nothing more fun to me than pulling up to the weigh-in dock with some kids and some fish that they earned!
But on to the fishing…
Inshore
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Finally some good numbers of redfish in the bay. The last few months have provided plenty of bait—perfect-sized pogies and great finger mullet on the flats. Lately, they’ve been a bit harder to find for me—not on the surface as much and a lot of what I catch in the net has been almost big enough to eat instead! I think now is a good time to switch to shrimp, if you can find it, and the pinfish don’t tear it up. I’m looking forward to the next few weeks and maybe those sheepshead will start biting more! I’ve been thinking about them since last winter. I tend to notice that bite pick-up when the armies of pinfish go away.
Offshore
Plenty of fish to keep. Red snapper is still open on weekends through November. I’ve actually found a better bite on frozen bait than live bait, which is interesting. The best depths for me are either in 50’, right off the beach, or in the 100+ range. The water is pretty dirty right now—not the beautiful Gulf water we’re used to. Grouper will be open until Oct 19, so get them while you can. Triggerfish and mingos are also plentiful in most locations. Make sure you have enough bait to pick through the small ones. I’ve found the bigger ones are up higher in the water or have a tendency to come up and get food. I feel like once you get in the small ones, you’re stuck! I don’t like dealing with squid too much, and we love catching bonito on my boat, so I have been using chunked bonito for my keepers or chumming them up similar to how they yellowtail fish down south. Make sure you always have a flat line out, too. I’ve had a great king bite lately doing that, and also around high relief structure. Seems like they weren’t around much at all this summer and then all of a sudden they showed up! Mahi has slowed down since that tropical storm came through. Much like the spring, I’m still catching some, but the bite is more like 2 or 3 larger fish as opposed to those summer days of 20 chickens. I’ll take it! Most have been found on similar high-relief structure areas, or if you’re lucky floating debris. We found a whole trash can offshore one day and kept 8 in the 5-10lb range. Perfect size fish, and a lot of fun on jigs. Blackfin tuna have shown up, much better this year than in years past. I think more have been weighed into the Rodeo this year already in the first week than all of last year combined, most of them larger than 25 pounds. These panhandle blackfin are thick! Fish them the same way you would for kings. I’d probably even go to the same places, just start with fluorocarbon leader. If you start losing hooks, switch to wire and hold on.
As always, just keep what you need. The more I fish, the less I care about “limits” and killing fish for a picture. If you have a decent box, try dropping a jig or catching something on topwater or fly—there’s nothing cooler than seeing a king skyrocket after a topwater. If you find yourself throwing away fish or finding it in the freezer, you’re keeping too much. Let me know if you catch anything good and feel free to reach out with any questions!
Capt. Mark Hotza Destin Fishing Captain of the Year 2020 www.30alighttackle.com www.instagram.com/30alighttackle/
