Fishbuster Charters’ Captain Dave Hanson reported, “I didn’t fish again, after my trip on 7/30, until Monday, 8/9. It is definitely slow-time now...as we turn the calendar page to August, we expect a few trips a month, at best, until our seasonal residents begin to return in October.



Monday, 8/9, I fished with Mark and Beth Gittens and their two young daughters, Jamie and Jessica. We dodged several rain showers and the group was happy catching fish, even in a little rain...but when we saw some lightening in the distance, shortly before noon, it was time to head in! The group brought home plenty of whitebone porgies, porkfish and grunts for dinner. We released a keeper-sized Spanish mackerel, and had fun with a barracuda on the line for a while, until he cut the line and ran off.



I got offshore again on Friday, 8/13, with Karl Gawenda and his family. We fished in 43 feet, using live shrimp. We caught two nice mangrove snapper at 16 inches each and released lots of shorts. We also caught ten keeper whitebone porgies to 14 inches, several lane snapper, including one keeper, a 26-inch Spanish mackerel, and grunts. We released yellowtail and red grouper shorts, along with an 80-pound goliath grouper. We had a big cobia circling the boat for a while, but he refused to eat anything."