Scott, Heidi and Don Looney -- June 28, 2002

Heidi and Don Looney returned to fish with their son Scott Looney from Chicago. The morning was spent on the flats. Quite a few fish were caught, but most were small. We had a mid-morning launch and missed the early bite on the flats. Later we eased off to one of Chokoloskee Charters' private reefs to catch permit. The heavy rains have been washing the tea colored water out of the rivers and today it was over the "Patch" reef. The permit there would not be found, although the area was loaded with spadefish, jacks and HUGE sharks. We decide to go farther off to another permit hotspot.

On the way we found a school of pompano on the surface. Tossing the Chokoloskee Charters standard 12 Fathom jig tail on a Rip Tide jig head, we caught pompano, blue runners, jacks and mackerel. The schooled up pompano were a blast, but the "macks" were a pain. Scott was cut off three casts in a row!!.

Nearby, spinner sharks were blasting into the air feeding on a school of mullet. We tossed a couple of live volunteers near the school and had two sharks pickup the baits. Scott brought one the boat ... a nice 70lb black tip. The second was huge and (luckily?) cut us off. A third pickup acted like a very big cobia, but the hook pulled.

The sky was beginning to get ominous, so had to cut things short in order to make our date with the permit. The sky and water conditions were such that it was very hard to see the fish. However, it was not long before Scott hand hooked a nice fish on 8 lb tackle. After about a 30 minute battle, it weighed 9 lbs on the Boca Grip. Unfortunately, we had to scoot because of weather. The trip back in allowed all to experience a full body dose of Florida's summertime liquid sunshine!!!

We were after big snook to finish the day. We went to a spot known to hold 20-25+ fish. The fish were there balling up a school of 2lb mullet!!! After netting some mullet we fired out a bait. Within minutes the rod went off!!! A BIG fish, but the hook pulled!!! Heartbreaking!!!. The remaining bites were all sharks. To finish the day, Scott fought a nice lemon shark, about 100lbs, right to boat before the hook pulled . We had hooked and lost a lot of fish during this day.

I guess the fish have got to win sometimes!!!

If you would like to book a trip with Chokoloskee Charters, contact The Captain @ www.ChokoloskeeCharters.com. or call them @ (239) 695-9107. Good fishing!!!