Outdoors

Daily fishing report

By LARRY HOFFMAN
Published August 24, 2005

Bluewater fishing 135 miles southwest of John's Pass along the area called the "steps" was hot last weekend. Sid Rice, Doug Johnston, Brad Carmen and crew fished the Old Salts Loop tournament. We trolled from the 100 fathom curve out to 4,000 feet. Early Friday after a night of swordfishing, we boated a 150-pound mako shark. The mako hit a big squid while we were drift fishing for swordfish. The remainder of the day was uneventful other than a small sailfish that busted our baits without a hookup. Early Saturday was better with a 30-pound wahoo, tuna and two sailfish, one of which we released. We hooked a blue marlin over 250 pounds which eventually pulled the hooks. We also had two other billfish in our trolling spread with no hookups. Overall, offshore fishing was average. Our best results were on skirted horse ballyhoo. Numerous other boats landed and released blue marlin, white marlin and swordfish. Weather conditions were perfect and should remain that way provided we don't have weather move into our area. Bluewater fishing off our coast is good through the month of September.

Larry "Huffy" Hoffman charters out of John's Pass, Treasure Island. Call 727 709-9396 or e-mail at huffyl@tampabay.rr.com

[Last modified August 24, 2005, 01:16:13]