I haven't done that in quite some time. Used to go up to Hobe Sound a lot. Sanibel does have some monsters though and the occasional jewfish as well.
Sandbars. Spinners and blacktips are out there but not real thick right now. When the water starts to warm up they'll be moving in to drop their little ones. There are always some lost ones and residents, but you don't start getting into them thick in that area until late April/May from my experience. Then it's game on through September, it just gets tougher to weed through the little ones to get to the big boys. When I worked those charter boats we had multiple trips where we caught 30 or more 3-5 footers in the 4 hour time frame.
As you can see by the 12/0 reel and the broom stick it's mounted on...we were geared up for bigger fish but no luck.
From back in my "good ole days" :
I sure wish I would have taken more pictures in the 5 years I spent on the water....like anything though, you do it everyday and the excitement fades. The boat I primarily worked on specialized in 24-60 hour trips. We didn't do much of the half day/full day stuff unless it was slow season. Sure do miss the blue water.
I saw some truly amazing stuff....from catching cobia off a 20 ft whale shark in the keys that got so close to us he ended up with blue bottom paint on his nose, to catching a 14 foot sawfish. Saw a 104 lb black grouper caught, a 78 lb cubera snapper, filled up 55 gallon drums full of snapper. We traded beer for shrimp to shrimpers (and made out like a bandit) and then caught blackfin tuna out of their cull slick. Extremely hard work and long long hours, but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything.
