What an awesome day we had yesterday. With no school for the kids, I took my 9 year old and 3 of his friends out for a day of fishing. We had a blast, with all of the kids on their best behavior!



The amazing day started right away with my favorite pod of dolphins, all together at 6-8 animals, charging and surfing in to the wake of the boat. The same large one from Sunday jumped and splashed us time and again to the kids and my delight before we left them for the next adventure. Bait was easy again and we loaded the livewell with mojarro, greenies, and whitebait.



The fish were biting pretty good right from the start with snapper, mackerel, and jacks getting things started.



We then headed to a snook spot where we caught a few small snook, and more jacks and mackerel.






After that it was time for a break, so it was back to the beach for some swim and play time. We also netted some more bait, and with a banana throw of the net catching so many nice whitebait I almost couldn’t lift the net into the boat. As we left the beach and headed back towards the pass, I saw some surface activity and went to investigate. Well, that started one of the most epic fish slaying hours I’ve ever experienced.



It started with everyone casting into the feeding frenzy and literally within a minute the mackerel and giant size ladyfish grabbing baits and tangling all 4 of the kids’ lines into a scary knotted mess.



It took me a while to re rig all of the lines, seemingly that much longer as the fish continued their feeding frenzy with a bunch of forlorn faces watching it. With the lines retied, we got back in to the fish, and the kids did a great job policing their lines and catching 1 fish after another.



My boy was throwing a lure and grinning ear to ear as he would hook, jump, and lose as many as 4-5 ladyfish on each cast before he hooked one well enough to land.



The other 3 kids were hooking, losing, and catching them just as quickly as I could bait their hooks. By the end of it, the 5 of us and the boat were covered head to toe with fish scales, blood, and poop from the ladyfish, big fun! We tried another spot or 2 back in Estero Bay without much luck and finished another awesome day out of Estero Bay by feeding the rest of the bait to the snook and catfish at the dock.