2 Sept 2010

  After several months of assisting BP with their clean up efforts and fighting to keep our beautiful beaches clean. I am back to booking trips and back to doing what I love again!! This morning I had the pleasure of Guiding two cousins, Tony and DJ Coughlin on an early morning topwater trip!! We started out around 0600 and made the run East at 54mph on glassy clear water. We quickly found the fish. On our first spot of the morning we landed a beautiful Redfish (5.6lbs) on a topwater plug. The fish seemed very aggresive and hungry this morning. Along with the Redfish we landed Speckled Trout, Bluefish, Ladyfish, Spanish Mackerel and a Jack Crevalle all on topwaters and all before 9:30am!!

  It was a great first day back to Charter fishing and another beautiful day to be on the water.

.............See you out there

Capt. Brad 
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19 May 2010

With the beautiful weather and flat seas in the Gulf, I made the run offshore today. Joined by my crew for the day of Arlon, Megan and Joshua Bardwell. We were headed out looking for snapper and grouper on some of the nearshore wrecks. After running about 8 miles out, we started out catching the normal Red Snapper, which are still out of season so we had to give them all a healthy release. Today we caught 11 different species. Including 4 types of Snapper and two types of Grouper. What we lacked in size today we more than made up for in variety! 

As the water continues to warm up the Snapper and Grouper will soon be joined by hordes of hungry King Mackerel and many other hard fighting species.

.........See you out there
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30 April 2010

Today I had the pleasure of guideing Andy Lammani and Will Motter. We had a bad forecast for the day, with high winds exceeding 20 mph and scattered showers. Feeling confident we could still get on the fish we made a run at it. We started out sight fishing Redfish on a shallow protected flat near the launch. Andy and Will quickly adjusted their eyes and caught on to the style of fishing. We quickly located Redfish, at first we saw a few singles that seemed spooky and unwilling to take our live shrimp. We pressed on another 200 yds and found the mother load. A school of fish in the 20-30 fish range. These fish were not spooky but seemed really uncomfortable. They seemed almost afraid of our live shrimp. After messing with these fish nearly an hour we had to press on.

We fished all the back bays and bayous and all the larger structure we could get to. I had a very tough time getting these guys on the fish. Through the course of the day we managed spanish mackerel and white trout and a pile of hard head catfish. A tough day to say the least.

.....See you out there
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21 April 2010 

The Spanish Mackerel are here! Today I guided Larry, Joseph and Jessie Norris on a 6 hour trip. We started out looking for Sheepshead but the spawn is all but over. There are still a few hanging around but it's just not the same. After little luck in the deep rocks, we switched gears and headed for the shallow grass flats of Santa Rosa Sound. While running, I noticed what looked like acres of bait crashing the surface. 

    It turned out ot be thousands and thousands of gigantic Spanish crashing throught huge schools of bait. The fish hit everything and anything we threw at them. Some of the spanish were up over the 26" mark. After an hour and a half of the Spanish we moved off in search of other game. We managed two large Sheepshead in the 3lb range and a beautiful slot Black Drum!

    Great day in the water and a great day to live in Florida!!

See you out there..............
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17 April 2010

Today I had the pleasure of guiding Jason and his wonderful family. I was joined by his wife Tara and two awesome sons Josh and Jacob. With the Sheepshead spawn drawing close to an end, we were hoping to be able to fill the cooler with these tasty critters. Arriving at the fishing grounds, we found the fish still feeding as we quickly boated a few large Sheepies and little Josh even boated a nice Red Snapper! Shortly after getting started the tide started to make it's daily shift. When this happens the fishing will slow a bit. So for about an hour we caught and released catfish and fought the bait stealers.

Once the tide made it's change it was on again! The large spawning Sheepshead started feeding again. We managed to boat a few larger fish in the 5lb-6lb range and Jason boated a beautiful pompano. Today was a beautiful day to be on the water and as the water continues to warm it's only gonna get better!

See you out there..........
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16 April 2010

Well after a long week of hard East winds and horrible fishing conditions we finally got a break. The winds finally took a shift adopting a more Southerly direction. This opened the door for me and my crew today to make a run for the Pass! Today, I was joined by Mr. Randy Marchbanks and his wife Mrs. Judy Marchbanks. We were on a 4 hour afternoon trip for whatever would chew!!

Shortly after arriving at the Pass we found the large Sheepshead still there and still hungry. We boated six large fish all in the 4lb-6lb range before the fish took lock jaw. We fished hard for another hour only finding bait stealers and catfish. While fishing Mr. Randy had mentioned he wanted to catch one of our famed BULL Reds. So that's what we did. We put out two lipped trolling lures and started back on an Easterly coures. Not long after deploying our baits, we got our first knock down and a hook up!! It was a beautiful 25lb Redfish. 

Mr. Randy informed me that is his largest Redfish to date!!! We had a great time and caught some great fish. 

See you out there....
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10 April 2010

Another great day today!! Despite the stiff Easterly winds and the low air temps my crew and I headed for the Sheepshead grounds. Today, I was joined by an awesome group from Louisiana.

  John Costello, Jean Costello, Kelly Costello and last but not least Megan Bardwell. We had a blast today! With Kelly hooking up on the first drop of the morning. It was a hard head catfish but it was fun to watch!! After that we made countless drifts over the structure scoring several large sheepshead ranging in weights from 3-6lbs. We were also excited to catch several Red Snapper!! The snapper were on the smaller side and being out of season were released.

Later in the afternoon Megan had the heartbreaker.... After wanting a Bull red all morning we finally hooked her into one. About 5 minutes into the fight the dang hook straightened on us. That's right..... the HOOK...... straightened. Must of been a beautiful fish. 

  What a great day on the water with a great crew!

See you out there!
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9 April 2010

  Today was an awesome day. I guided Jeff Schachterle and Matt Fredrick on an afternoon Sheepshead trip. The day started out a little slow, but as the tide started to turn the bite turned RED HOT. We boated fish after fish for the last three hours of the trip. Most all of our Sheepshead were hovering at or above the 5lb mark. With a few studs even breaking into the 7lb range!

  Late in the afternoon Jeff hooked the beast of the trip. A 20lb Redfish, he fought this fish on 10lb Braid and a 20lb leader. After a 15 minute fight on extreme light tackle Jeff whooped the big girl and we boated her for a few quick snapshots before we sent her back off healthy as ever.
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3 April 2010

 Another fun day aboard the South Again!!! Today I guided Mark Connell and his soon to be 8 year old son Rich Connell (Happy Birthday Rich). We met at the lauch at 1:30pm and set off on a 4 hour adventure. We first headed for Pensacola Pass and the North Jettie that has been doing me so well the last couple of weeks. The bite was really slow with the changing tide and the stiff South East wind but we managed to boat a handful of tasty Sheepshead in pretty short order. After putting the Sheepshead in the cooler Mark and Rich informed me that they needed to land a redfish before we headed in for the day.

  With redfish on our minds we picked up and made a run back East to a set of docks that have done me well over the years. First set of docks we stop at we hook a Redfish! The fish made several long hard runs back through the structure threatening to break us off at any minute. After a long 10 minute battle Rich beat the fish and boated a gorgeous 30.5" redfish. The fish had over 18 spots. After the redfish, things slowed down as the day drew to an end. We headed back to the launch followed by another beautiful Florida sunset!!

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30 March 2010

 WOW!!! What a fun day. Today I guided Mr. Pete Servais and Mr. Loren Haas on a 6 hour trip. Our targets were spawning Sheepshead around the Jetties in the pass. We launched around 7:00 am and made our way quickly to the North Jettie in Pensacola Pass. Pitching Live shrimp to and near the structure was our key to success today. We quickly started boating fish in the 12"-14" range. Once the tide started moving the bigger fish started to feed!

We boated several fish over the 4lb range and two over the 5lb mark!! We were also blessed with two large Redfish. One which was an over slot beauty at 30" and a mid-slot fish at 25". 

Our final catch today was 20 Sheepshead (15 kept) and 2 Redfish (1 kept).