Good Time Charters

Here is one of our many photos of one of the resident dolphins in our bay, “Notch” and her calf. We have been observing her for a few years now and we are quite fond of her. She often will swim and do acrobatic leaps near our boat with her calf alongside. Some days she is a little stand-offish towards us but this morning she was very social and interactive with us. What a wonderful display she gave us this beautiful morning on our Coastal Sealife, dolphin, and shelling cruise. Besides dolphin, we also spotted racoon, a huge flock of roseate spoonbills, night herons, and anhingas. On the shell island we found many seastars, many were still alive but there were a few that our passengers were able to keep. We can only hope that our passengers enjoyed the tour as much as we did.

Absolutely gorgous sunsets here over the Gulf of Mexico. We never tire of them. We haven’t posted a blog in a while. It has been a bit chilly here for boating and business has slowed greatly. Looking forward to the temperatures to climb back up to the upper 60’s and eventually the 70’s soon!

We have been having some spectacular sunsets recently, although we find ourselves saying that all the time here. And the dolphins have been loving these cold fronts that we have been having. We usually watch the sunset over the Gulf but were enjoying the dolphins so much that we lost track of time and watched the sunset over the bay instead. It was worth it though, the dolphins were doing all kinds of acrobatics for us and having so much fun. We still observed a gorgous sunset.

It has been unusually chilly here on the Gulf Coast but prior to our current weather we had a strong surge that pushed in all kinds of sea life onto our shore. The shorebirds sure were happy! They got to snack on sea urchins, conchs, and sea cucmbers. It is supposed to get back into the 70’s by the weekend! Here is a pic of one of our recent passengers with a large whelk that got pushed into shore. We released it back into deeper water.

Capt. Mike of Good Time Charters reports a productive week in Estero Bay with Trout, Sheepshead, and Redfish being the most prodominant.  If the trout bite continues into the new year as well as it has been this past week He expects to see lots of nice fish being brought in.  Most of the trout caught were low to mid slot with several topping 20″.  The trout caught this week weren’t on the flats but in deep troughs running out from the mangroves in good current.  Live shrimp either free lined or lightly weighted worked great.  The sheepshead are everywhere and starting to show some decent size several convicts over 7 lbs were hooked using live shrimp on small hooks.  The sheepshead are found oyster bars and mangroves as well as dock pilings, anywhere there is shellfish.  Redfish were found in these same locations often mixed in with the sheepshead and hitting the live shrimp as well.

What a great morning for this cruise. We started out with a little fog that quickly burnt off once that warm Florida sun rose high. The dolphins were very playful all morning and played in our wake on the way to our shelling island. The McDowells were on board celebrating their wedding anniversary and they got a great cruise abundant with wildlife. We stopped at the bird rookery islands and found many magnificant frigates, pelicans, egrets, and herons. We also saw some roseate spoonbills and a racoon foraging for oysters around Coon Key. While shelling, we found some starfish along with some whelks and conchs. The starfish and live whelks were realeased, but the empty conchs and whelks were beautiful for the taking. The Gulf was calm for the return home and a lone dolphin played in our wake on the way back in.

What a great dolphin-eco tour. The dolphins met us within 10 minutes of leaving the dock wanting to play.

Wow, there was tons of wildlife out this morning on our Coastal Sealife, dolphins and Shelling cruise. The dolphins were playful and the manatees were around too. Found some night herons resting in the mangrove trees and some nice shells at the beach. While the dolphins were playing near our boat I managed to grab this great shot of two jumping together.

WooHoo, were the dolphins playful on our recent morning dolphin shelling cruise. Notch is a female dolphin in this resident pod that we identify by the notch at the tip of her dorsal fin. Her pod followed us through the bay playing in our wake. I was able to catch a few pics of them.

Another wonderful sunset dolphin cruise with Good Time Charters. We had dolphins jumping in our wake and chasing the boat. Then ended in the Gulf for a gorgous sunset.