- 2 weeks ago
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00:00It's springtime in Panama City Beach and this is when the magic starts to happen.
00:08This is my favorite style of fishing. We're gonna play by ear, we're gonna let the conditions...
00:13Have no idea what we're gonna get. That's it. The conditions are gonna dictate what we do.
00:16You know that first school of fish you find in the morning, like, I really want to focus on it because we pull off, leave that school at Jack's.
00:22We might not find another school of fish because, you know, it's beach fishing. It's Feaster family.
00:27Todd's like a little kid. You let him catch anything. He's so happy.
00:32Yeah, I'm good. I'm good.
00:34That's the first black sea bass in Chasing the Sun history.
00:37Oh, Todd got the big one. Oh, no. Uh-oh.
00:42Oh, look at that pretty fish.
00:45That right there is like a razor blade. I mean, you could probably shave with that.
00:51Oh, and look what Captain Todd caught.
00:55I told you that one. I told you it was in.
01:02Yeah, look at that.
01:06There he is.
01:10Yeah, that's a good one.
01:12Chasing the Sun is brought to you by...
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01:35It is springtime in Panama City Beach and I have Captain Todd Jones with me. One of my best friends. And we've been guiding together for a long time.
01:52I love Todd, y'all. We're gonna have a good time.
01:54Our annual spring fishing trip.
01:56That's it. You know, we've already got into some reef fishing stuff. You know, done a lot of bay fishing. It's springtime, which usually means you have a lot of wind.
02:04We have a little east wind today. And I don't know what we're gonna do. We're gonna probably do a little of everything.
02:09You know, the weather on these days, to me, is what really dictates what we're gonna do. And the pattern that I see more than any other time in the spring is, you know, those early mornings, it's cool.
02:22You're gonna have a hard northeast wind, which is usually what tells us, hey, get on the beach.
02:26Because our beach is slick calm on the northeast wind. And, but as the day goes on, and that sun comes up, the air temperature starts to warm.
02:37If it does warm up good, it seems like that northeast wind will really die off. And then the reef fishing can get really good, because now it's calm all over the Gulf.
02:45Yeah, that's right.
02:46This is my favorite style of fishing. We're gonna play by ear. We're gonna let the conditions.
02:49Have no idea what we're gonna get.
02:50That's it. The conditions are gonna dictate what we do.
02:52And it's just like we tell our customers a lot of time. Let's go fishing for what's biting, and what the conditions allow us to do.
02:59And usually it's successful.
03:00Absolutely.
03:04Well, Todd goes, man, look at all these dolphins. There must be some jacks around.
03:07And sure enough.
03:08Dude.
03:09There they are.
03:11I slow down, and it looks like a decent, not a huge group, maybe about 30 to 50 of them.
03:16Yeah, they're just feeding around, nice and just loafing.
03:20Well, let's enter up their little party.
03:23Yeah.
03:24You know, that first school of fish you find in the morning, like, I really wanna focus on it, because you don't know what's next.
03:30You don't know.
03:31Yeah.
03:32I mean, we pull off, leave that school of jacks, we might not find another school of fish.
03:36Because, you know, it's beach fishing, it's Feaster family.
03:38Yeah.
03:39And now that we have some here, the dolphins kind of have them all jacked up.
03:44I noticed when we were trying to reset up on the school of jacks, the dolphins were getting in our wake and jumping and kind of following us.
03:51And I was like, oh, you know, the dolphins do that a lot.
03:53They like to kind of follow the boat and kind of use your weight to surf in and jump and stuff.
03:58So I was thinking, I got an idea.
04:00If we can get these dolphins to follow us in our wake and lead them away from the school of jacks, maybe we can turn and run back to the school of fish and get a couple bites out of them.
04:11All right, we'll give them one more shot here.
04:15They are still screaming.
04:18Unfortunately, I think the dolphins are a little smarter than me because they had a good time playing in the wake.
04:23Yeah.
04:24And as soon as we turned to go back to the jacks, they went right back to them too.
04:27Go over here and get my dinner.
04:29Yeah, exactly.
04:30Trying to outsmart dolphins is pretty hard.
04:33I haven't figured out how to outsmart one yet.
04:36You just leave and go find something else.
04:39That's right.
04:41You know me, I like to get my trash can slam out.
04:48So I get my, catch a few hard tails, catch some ruby lids.
04:54Leave it to the red snappers to save our day.
04:57Yes.
04:58When you can catch them like this, where you're chunking.
05:00I think a lot of this today was just due to the fact the water is so clear.
05:11You know that wind really hadn't let up yet.
05:21So typically I would just stay on the beach trying to wait for the wind to die off a little bit.
05:26But in my new boat with the ride system and Sea Keeper and all these new technologies that make it more comfortable, now that the beach has proven to be pretty quiet, I'm pretty excited to show you this stuff and start working our way off the beach.
05:39Oh yeah, I'm really excited about going out there and checking it all out.
05:44You can see every rock down there.
05:46Yeah.
05:47And you can't miss it.
05:51They're there.
05:52And you got to kind of know, like right now we're pointing out into open water.
05:55Once I get the beam right here pointed right back at them, you'll see this whole stretch right here.
06:00The beauty about your boat and the way it's set up now is you go out there, it's a smooth ride out.
06:06And then when you stop, it's smooth.
06:08I mean, it really is pretty impressive.
06:18Well, we ran the beach a little ways and wasn't a whole lot of life up there.
06:23So there's a couple little wrecks in shallow water, 20 feet of water.
06:29And so we're just going to fish some live shrimp and see what we may catch.
06:34What we're really trying to do is let this wind calm down a little bit.
06:37We were going to try to jump out to some reefs.
06:39And, you know, springtime reef fishing can be really, really effective.
06:45But when that east wind's blowing 15 to 20 knots, you don't want to get off this beach very far.
06:50But I can already feel that wind starting to let up now.
06:53It's starting to warm up a little bit.
06:55So we're going to play around here for a minute.
06:57Hopefully we can slide out a little further and catch some big fish.
07:01What we're really doing is every spring, Justin takes me on a hardtail excursion.
07:06That's right.
07:07So I'm just out here catching hardtails.
07:09Todd's like a little kid.
07:10You let him catch anything.
07:11He's so happy.
07:12I'm good.
07:13I'm good.
07:14You know me.
07:15I like to get my trash can slam out.
07:17So I get my catch a few hardtails, catch some ruby lips, a pin fish.
07:23You know, I like to catch all those first just to, you know, warm up a little bit.
07:34I like to start off with this like technical beach stuff.
07:37And then when I realize it's not working, I'm like, all right, let's go back to what we know works.
07:42And one of my favorite ways to reef fish is, you know, by chunking.
07:45Yeah, absolutely.
07:46But we're usually like 80 to 100 foot of water somewhere in there.
07:50And I really, I don't know why I question it, but I was kind of wondering, like, I don't even know if this will work in here in 40 or 50 feet of water.
07:56It's so shallow.
07:57I don't know if they'll, you know, be spooked by the boat being right on top of them.
08:01But it didn't take long for you to get some action.
08:04Could Todd have our first real bite of the day?
08:11I don't know.
08:12I don't know.
08:13Maybe.
08:15What you got?
08:16A dang sea bass.
08:17Look at that big old sea bass.
08:18Oh, that's a good eater right there.
08:20All right.
08:21Hey, that's a little different for us.
08:22Yes, that is a good eater right there.
08:24Matter of fact, that's the first black sea bass in Chasing the Sun history.
08:27That is a, and that is a good one right there.
08:29That is a beautiful one.
08:30Man, you have about a half a dozen of them.
08:33Oh, that's a good one there.
08:34There we go.
08:35Oh, trigger.
08:36Trigger.
08:37Good.
08:38You had to get them out of the way, too.
08:39That's right.
08:44Leave it to the red snappers to save our day.
08:46Yes.
08:47They, hey, they bail us out a lot of times on fishing charters, don't they?
08:51Absolutely.
08:52When you can catch them like this, where you're chunking, you literally see the entire school
08:57of fish swimming right under the boat.
08:59And, you know, sometimes they can get what I feel is real finicky.
09:03I think a lot of this today was just due to the fact that water is so clear.
09:08All right, buddy.
09:10Still got a couple months before he's going to ride home with us.
09:14Hey, we're catching fish.
09:18Leave it to Todd.
09:20We're sitting here, got these snappers all fired up, having fun.
09:23Just, you know, I figure this is going to be a kind of a catch and release day anyways.
09:26But you seem like you always got to try to throw something in the box.
09:29Snapper's this big, right up here on the surface.
09:32And all Todd Jones wants to do-
09:33That's what I've been waiting for right there.
09:35Hey.
09:36Todd says if it don't go in here, it don't count.
09:39That's it.
09:40That's a good one right there.
09:41All right.
09:42Well, on the screen, it looks like there's about 300 more of them there.
09:46So go ahead and just go ahead and get you a few.
09:48There we go.
09:57So if you're wondering why you see all these fishing guides, especially catching red snapper,
10:02why they're real adamant about flipping them into a box or flipping them over the side.
10:07If you look at this right here, this little edge right here.
10:11Why don't you touch it?
10:12That is a, that is like a razor blade right there.
10:16I mean, it, you'll see a lot of these big fish, you'll get cut off.
10:20And it's, what's cutting them off is they start yo-yoing up and down is what I call it.
10:24They start bouncing up and down and they yo-yo and they, you get gill plated.
10:28That right there is like a razor blade.
10:31I mean, you could, you could probably shave with that.
10:33All right.
10:34I got the D hook right here.
10:35And red snappers are not in season.
10:40This is the best way to release them.
10:42Hook the iron quarter.
10:43Take him out of the water.
10:45He's gone.
10:47And then one more.
10:49Oh, try it again.
10:50There we go.
10:58Woo, look at that pretty fish.
11:00You know what's wild?
11:01He ate that thing 30, 40 feet off the bottom.
11:04He's reeling to the fish, lifting them up, letting the fish dig.
11:07Wait, are you saying I did it right?
11:08Huh?
11:09Are you saying I did it right?
11:10Well, I mean, you've been watching me for a while.
11:11Okay.
11:12I mean, eventually you're going to learn by osmosis.
11:14I've got another one.
11:15We've got another one.
11:16Look at this guy.
11:17Vermillion.
11:18My grinding technique.
11:19You just hold the rod straight and reel.
11:21And then they go right in the box.
11:23Oh, and look what Captain Todd caught.
11:24I told you that.
11:25I told you that was here.
11:26Isn't that wild?
11:27We couldn't get him to come up any other.
11:28Yeah.
11:29Yeah.
11:30Yeah.
11:31Yeah.
11:32Yeah.
11:33Yeah.
11:34Yeah.
11:35Yeah.
11:36Yeah.
11:37Yeah.
11:38Yeah.
11:39Yeah.
11:40Yeah.
11:41Yeah.
11:42Yeah.
11:43Yeah.
11:44Yeah.
11:45Yeah.
11:46Yeah.
11:47Yeah.
11:48Yeah.
11:49Yeah, yeah.
11:50Yeah.
11:51Yeah.
11:52Yeah.
11:53Yeah.
11:54Yeah.
11:55Yeah.
11:56Yeah.
11:57Yeah.
11:58Yeah.
11:59Yeah.
12:00Yeah.
12:01Sometimes you got to do that.
12:02It's like with triggers, when you're sniper fishing sometimes.
12:04With it, with the triggers, you just got to sit there and keep fishing.
12:07If you know, they're there just fish for a little bit, get them, get them, get through
12:12them.
12:13And then the snappers will start coming up.
12:15All right.
12:16This is how I like to approach an artificial reef.
12:19I always like to start on the surface.
12:21I want to see what fish will come up to the boat, what fish we can catch on a flat line with no weight, just feeding the bait out.
12:28And, you know, because if you just drop baits to the bottom, you don't get to see what was there.
12:33You get to catch what was there, but you don't get to see it.
12:35And I want to see what's there.
12:36So now that we saw these snappers and trigger fish and we caught those, then I like to work through the water column.
12:42Now I want to start dropping some bait down to the bottom and see what was on the bottom that we didn't get to come to the surface.
12:49Might be like a trigger fish or something.
12:51He completely quit pulling.
12:53No, it's a big old mangrove snapper.
12:55Look at that thing.
12:58Big old mangrove.
12:59Rupert.
13:01I'm just kidding.
13:02Trying to get Todd excited.
13:04You know what's wild?
13:05He ate that thing 30, 40 feet off the bottom, halfway down.
13:09I was letting it down.
13:10I just felt the line speed up and take it off, close the bale.
13:13Assumed it was a snapper up in the water.
13:16Little gag grouper.
13:17Look at that.
13:19You can kind of tell because he was digging, digging, digging.
13:21And as soon as I got him moving up, he just kind of quit.
13:25And you notice one thing when Justin was doing that is his rod was bent the entire time.
13:30As he was going back down, that rod just stayed bent the whole time.
13:34He's reeling to the fish, lifting him up, letting the fish dig.
13:38Are you saying I did it right?
13:40Well, I mean, you've been watching me for a while.
13:42Okay.
13:43I mean, eventually you're going to learn by osmosis.
13:45Hey, if y'all ever seen me and Todd fishing and hunting together, you know compliments are kind of hard to come by.
13:50So when you think you're getting one, sometimes I start to worry.
13:53Like, what's going on over here?
13:55Usually this shallow, I guess it is kind of common in the cooler water temps like you were talking about for all these fish to move inshore.
14:03But I was really shocked when we started dropping baits to the bottom at the size and the numbers of gag groupers.
14:11Hey, again, we're not in 100 feet of water.
14:14We're in here shallow.
14:16Look at that.
14:17We really were shallow for that volume of that many gag groupers.
14:23I mean, it was, and honestly, we didn't even have the baits to really be, we weren't, like, we weren't even targeting, didn't even plan on that.
14:32And they were just all over the place.
14:33Yeah.
14:33Yo, that's the ones right there.
14:35Yeah.
14:35My grandparents were smiling down going, Justin, don't let that one go.
14:38Don't do it.
14:39That big old fish ate this little bitty, one of them little bitty scrumps.
14:43But you know what?
14:44We got to do it.
14:44Yeah.
14:45Pretty gag.
14:48It's a good tug, I tell you that.
14:49Yes.
14:51Catching gags like that on the bottom with light spinning tackle is really fun.
14:57It's really challenging because you're testing that tackle to its absolute limits.
15:03Light line, light rods.
15:05If you don't get every bit you can, have good knot systems, he's just going to dig back down to the bottom.
15:11There's obviously structure all under us, which is why they're here.
15:13And he'll break you off on something.
15:17Any bait that made it to the bottom, whether it was a tiny little shrimp or a bigger bait, like, it didn't matter.
15:23Those grouper were going to get it.
15:25All right.
15:25I think we found the gags, y'all.
15:27Big gag groupers.
15:30Once I caught that first one, the light rod, I decided to break out the big gun so we can see what's here.
15:35Oh, look at that pretty fish.
15:42Dang.
15:44Everything kind of comes and goes in cycles.
15:46In my opinion, our gag grouper populations have not been spectacular for the last decade.
15:52But I think that's changing.
15:53I think this is a good sign of a good comeback.
15:56I think so, too, and we're seeing a lot of small, like, age class, like, in a volume of them.
16:03So those fish are just going to get bigger.
16:05So I think, you know, with some of the regulations that we have, it's really helped them, and I think we're going to have a better grouper fishing.
16:13Y'all see his stomach poking out right now?
16:16It's got just a little air in it.
16:17As long as he's fresh, he's got a lot of energy.
16:19Go ahead and throw him back in, Todd.
16:21He's going to swim right back down.
16:23Yep.
16:23Do water on us.
16:24That's the best way to release these fish.
16:26We're only in 76 feet of water right here.
16:29We're on a big artificial reef, and it's covered in fish.
16:32It's got tons of snapper, red mangroves, vermilion, lane snapper, all those right here in one spot.
16:37Nice gag groupers.
16:38So many different species on these artificial reefs.
16:41Basically, if you're inside about 100 foot of water, give or take, and you're bringing these fish up and letting them go quickly,
16:48that barotrauma that pushes their stomach out will normally go right back down.
16:52And so that fish has not been altered at all.
16:55He gets to swim back to the bottom.
16:56Once you move deeper than this, this is when you want to go to the Return'em Right website, get your descending device,
17:03and that way, instead of that fish struggling or floating off, you can just hook them on there and have that device take them to the bottom.
17:10Right.
17:10They will send you for free a Return'em Right descending device, and that way, when you catch these fish and they have that barotrauma,
17:18you can safely send them back to the bottom.
17:21Take care of your fish.
17:23Take care of your fisheries, and they'll take care of you.
17:25Just a treat.
17:25Take care of your fish.
17:26Take care of your fish.
17:28What's your caliber?
17:28Chasing the sun has been brought to you by...
17:33...Mina Kota.
17:38Florida Water Sports.
17:40Get all you need for the water at fws.fish.
17:42Humminbirds, simply, clearly, veterans.
17:48And by Pirates Cove Marina, you enjoy the gulf, we'll take care of the rest.
17:57One of the many real fun beach activities the Chase and the Sun crew partakes in
18:05is the annual Pirates of the High Seas and Renaissance Fest.
18:09Kicking off the festivities with the parade along the shores of the world's most beautiful beach,
18:15swashbucklers of all ages can enjoy an action-packed weekend of fireworks,
18:20live mermaid shows, a fire circus, a treasure drop, and much more.
18:26Travel back in time with our Renaissance Edition,
18:29where gentry and squires alike can experience an enchanted marketplace,
18:33complete with a Pirates pub, live entertainment, and more.
18:38Go to visit panamacitybeach.com for details.
18:49Oh, Todd got the bigger!
18:51Oh, no!
18:52Uh-oh!
18:53I had a really nice one.
18:55However, the rod had a little bit of a slick drag on it.
18:59I may have sabotaged you there.
19:00Yeah, yeah.
19:01You know, once you realize you're grouper fishing, you better fish a heavy drag,
19:05because he's gonna run straight back down into that wreck.
19:07Yeah, I was not stomping that one.
19:09And I was like, oh, Todd, yeah, here's a rod, you can grouper fish with this one.
19:12I had the drag lighting way up.
19:14And when you hooked up, that dude took off like a rocket.
19:17There's that cobia we're looking for.
19:19Might want to add some heat onto that one.
19:21Yep.
19:22Yep.
19:23Yep.
19:24Whatever it was, he's gone now.
19:25You trusted my tackle.
19:26Yes.
19:27That was a big mistake.
19:28Dang it.
19:29Now that we've kind of proven all these close artificial reefs are just loaded with fish,
19:37and you got you a couple of food fish, what else is there to do?
19:41Yeah, I'd say let's, you know, run the beach when we find those jacks again,
19:46and end it like that.
19:48If not, nothing else.
19:49Hey, it was pretty.
19:50I was about to say, I love doing that.
19:52I love riding back.
19:53I don't care where I'm at.
19:54If I go east or west, it doesn't really matter.
19:56I love to run right back up to that beach, especially on a north wind because you're
20:00going to have a smoother ride home.
20:01Absolutely.
20:02But the scenery and seeing that shallow water as you ride home is just beautiful.
20:06Yep, absolutely.
20:07Hey, we proved you can come out here to all these public reefs and they're full of fish.
20:13It really is.
20:14It's such a cool system we have to be able to build these artificial reefs.
20:19And we're already doing a pretty good job.
20:20There's a lot of artificial reefs out here, but as this population grows, and I hope more
20:25and more people keep getting into fishing.
20:27That's good, right?
20:28Yeah, absolutely.
20:29We want everybody to come out here and join us.
20:31But as this population grows, we all need to make sure we reinvest and keep building artificial
20:36reefs.
20:37Because if we keep building reefs out here, we can have more and more fish for everybody.
20:40And no one ever complains about too many fish.
20:42No, not at all.
20:43No, not at all.
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