Dave Hanson

The first part of the week brought lots of rain, and not just the familiar afternoon thunderstorms; it rained early mornings, into late evenings. It was mid-week before I got out fishing. Wednesday, 8/13, I fished Estero Bay with Robert & Roberta Dulberg and their children, Daniel, ten, and Rebecca, six. Rebecca was a little leery of boats in general, but quickly adapted and had a great time--especially when she got to see a porpoise and a manatee close-up.

The group caught two keeper mangrove snapper and released smaller snapper, sheepshead, cravalle jack, trout and ladyfish. Robert caught two nice redfish--one, a bull at 28 1/2 inches, was released, and the other at 25 1/2 inches went home for dinner!

Robert and Daniel fished again with me Thursday, joined by Robert's brother, Mark, and his children. This time we headed near-shore to the reefs and fished there as long as we could, but it was a little sloppy out there and more than Daniel could handle after a while. So we eventually moved in to fish off the channel. We ended up with a flounder and five keeper mangrove snapper and we released smaller snapper.

Kevin Port, son Jake, and friends Dave and John fished with me 18 miles west of New Pass, on Friday morning. Using live shrimp, we caught over a hundred mangrove snapper that were just short of keeper size for federal waters so we had to release those, along with some big ladyfish. But we did catch five keeper mangrove snapper, three keeper yellowtail snapper, three Spanish mackerel to 24 inches and porgies.

The photo shown is of mother-daughter anglers Kay and Julia Ware with a red grouper caught on shrimp and released on a recent near-shore trip to the artificial reefs.

Fish Species: redfish, snapper, flounder, mackerel, porgies, ladyfish
Bait Used: live shrimp
Tackle Used: light spinning
Method Used: bottom fishing and tree lines-oyster bars bayside
Water Depth: 1-3 bayside; 15-35 feet gulfside
Water Temperature: 84
Wind Direction: S-SW
Wind Speed: 5-10 knots
red grouper released at Bonita Beach reefs
red grouper released at Bonita Beach reefs


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Dave Hanson

About The Author: Captain Dave Hanson

Company: Fish Buster Charters

Area Reporting: Bonita Beach

Bio: Captain Dave Hanson is a native of southwest Florida. He has been fishing local waters since childhood, and has been fishing professionally for over fifteen years. He is Coast Guard licensed, and is a member in good standing of the Bonita Springs Chamber of Commerce. He has been featured in several national fishing magazines, and he also appears weekly in the fishing reports sections of the Bonita, Ft. Myers, Ft. Myers Beach, and Naples, FL newspapers.

239-947-1688
Click Here For Past Fishing Reports by Captain Dave Hanson