Good Time Charters

What a wonderful morning dolphin and shelling cruise we had. The dolphins were abundant and we even saw a few manatee. We found several sea stars at the island and lots of pretty shells. We received this photo from a family that cruised out with us on a recent tour. In the photo is their daughter Melanie with a spiny sea star, learning about them from our guide Cristina. This cruise was great and we saw so much wildlife.

We have had some great tours so far this summer. The dolphin in the pic we have named Jack knife. She jumps vertically completely out of the water and then reverses nose first back into the water. She has a calf with her that often jumps along side her. They are soo fun to watch. On a recent morning dolphin and shelling cruise, we not only saw lots of manatees and dolphins, we found a live horse conch at our shelling island. The other picture is of one of our passengers holding the conch. The tides have been so high, with strong tides around our new moon, so the shelling has been challenging, but we are still finding nice shells, sea stars, horseshoe crabs, and lots of othersealife around the shoreline.

On one of our morning shelling and dolphin cruises last week we saw a baby snowy egret entangled in fishing line dangling from a low lying branch head down in the water. We thought it was no longer alive and Cristina, our marine biologist and naturalist, waded over to it to cut all the line out of the trees to prevent another entanglement, and to release the unfortunate bird. To our surprise the egret was still alive and struggling to keep his head above water. The egret was exhausted and seemed completely content resting on Cristina’s hand. We were able to get it to a wildlife hospital on Sanibel. Unfortunately, the doctor called us 4 days later to inform us the little egret didn’t make it.

Capt. Mike Denegre of Good Time Charters reports a great week fishing in Estero Bay and its adjoining passes this past week. Casting Live shrimp with no more than an eighth ounce of weight around the mangroves has produced lots of mangrove snapper as well as red fish. Moving water and adequate water depth are key. The Reds have been found most active around the top of the tide around the trees and into the shade as the day warms up. Also around the top of the tide Capt. Mike has found lots of action on the grass beds. Fishing live shrimp under a popping cork in 3 to 5 feet of water over grass brought in lots of spotted sea trout and occasional pompano and bonnet head sharks. Drifting the passes early in the day found a nice mix of snapper, trout, mackeral, and grunts. All of these were caught using 8th ounce jig heads bounced along the bottom.