Outdoors

Daily fishing report

By BILL HARDMAN
Published October 8, 2005

The right conditions to get in some bottom time and hunt for offshore fish have been few and far between. In the past month, rough sea conditions have allowed us about five good weather days in combination with shootable underwater visibility.

Those who did get out did pretty well. The deeper technical divers who dove the Elbow, an area about 70 miles west of the shipping channel, did very well with large gag groupers. A few weighed just over 60 pounds.

Fish concentrations in the middle grounds have not been as good. Those diving in the near-shore water just past the 80-foot mark have done well with hogfish and red grouper. Snappers are still strong on some wrecks. Just before our raging easterly winds, we had some of our divers do very well with 4 to 6 pound mangrove snappers on the Mexican Pride wreck. Evading the goliath groupers made boating these snappers very challenging. The amberjacks are on deeper wrecks, but sizes are barely legal.

Bill Hardman teaches scuba, spearfishing and free diving through Aquatic Obsessions Scuba in St. Petersburg. Call (727) 344-3483.

[Last modified October 8, 2005, 01:26:19]