Manalis reel up another IGFA world record
JoAnn Manali and husband Capt. Anthony Manali Jr. call their boat the Legmakr, but they’re newsmakers this week.
JoAnn Manali caught a world-record mangrove snapper that tipped the scale at 8 pounds 4 ounces to better the previous International Game Fishing Association record of 4 pounds — more than double the size.
The catch was to be recorded in the IGFA records Oct. 11 and JoAnn will receive a certificate acknowledging her accomplishment. The snapper was caught on live threadfin in 100 feet of water on a trip about 23 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico.
For JoAnn Manali, who caught the fish on her birthday Aug. 4 with husband and captain Anthony Jr., it was a fourth record fish and a whopper, and it’s just what Anthony promised her would happen for her birthday.
“Honest,” she said, “he told me ‘we’re going fishing for your birthday and you’re going to catch a world-record fish’ and I did.”
Around the area this week, water temperatures dropped to about 73 degrees off the beaches, and the drop makes the area prime for fishing off the beaches for a variety of fast, toothy species.
Remember, red snapper season opened on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Jonny Keyes from Island Discount Tackle said the beach action seems to have improved for shoreline anglers, as compared to the bay side. Anglers will find ladyfish and jack crevalle, which can be caught with spoons and shiners. Redfish might be cruising through as well, in which case anglers should use cut ladyfish or gold spoons. In the bay, anglers will see trout, Spanish mackerel and a few redfish.
Boaters going offshore have a good shot at mackerel, Keyes said, as well as a lot of nice blacktip and spinner sharks, and even some hammerheads. Anglers might see some tarpon mixed in with the shark. For tarpon and sharks, try cut mackerel, mullet or live threadfins. “People have been reporting tarpon every day,” he said. “A little hard to get them mixed in with the other species, but using heavy mono and a big circle hook, you might get lucky.”
Kingfish should be around a few miles offshore thanks to cooler water temperatures. “People will want to stock up on wire, treble hooks, lure, trolling lures and trolling spoons,” Keyes said.
On the bay side, from a boating standpoint, Keyes heard of a big school of redfish in north Sarasota Bay. “They’re just waiting to move offshore,” he said.
Capt. Mark Howard of SumoTime Fishing Charters said before the high winds, he had some excellent days fishing on the waters of Tampa Bay and the nearshore waters of the Gulf of Mexico. He said the speckled trout bite has continued to be strong where the seagrass beds are over the 2-8 foot depths.
“I like to chum an area and get the speckled trout chewing to get some fast action on these fun, fine-eating fish,” Howard said. “A new method I’ve employed for catching the speckled trout has been to nose-hook the shiner and make a long cast through the chummed up fish and work the shiner back to the boat like a top-water lure. This method seems to enrage the big trout and gets them to attack the shiner. It also has worked on other apex predators.”
He said the inshore and beach fishing has really turned on with the dip in the water temperatures and the cold front passing through this past week. Spanish mackerel, bonito, sharks, tarpon and a few kingfish have been feeding off the Anna Maria beaches in the early morning.
“Look for the diving birds and chum with shiners to get the fish behind your boat,” he said. “Last Sunday, on a birthday charter for Robby Friday of Kissimmee, fishing with his father Matt and friend David, we had a banner day on the nearshore waters, catching a lot of 3-5 pound Spanish mackerel and putting seven big spinner sharks in the air. We only got one to the boat for a leader release, but the 6-foot spinner shark flying out of the water gave the boys a memorable birthday experience.”
Howard said the upcoming week would feature increasing tides for the weekend, which means stronger moving water. Howard will be concentrating his efforts on the potholes and drop-offs of the Intracostal Waterway, and along the edges of flats. The nearshore and offshore bites will only get better as the water temperature drops and the grouper and snapper make their move into shallow water, he said.
“October is one of my favorite months to fish because of the variety, abundance and willingness of the fish to chew,” Howard said.
Capt. Larry McGuire of Show Me the Fish Charters out of the Cortez Fishing Center said his clients encountered great pelagic action this week in about 40 feet of water offshore of Anna Maria Island. “I anchored up on a reef and started catching grouper and snapper,” McGuire said.
Flat-lining sardines as bait, his clients caught cobia, blacktip and reef sharks, Spanish mackerel, barracuda and kingfish.
“The weather forecast looks perfect and I plan on heading deep, out past 100 feet for monster grouper, snapper and amberjack. But this time of year, if the seas are rough, you can fish closer in and catch lots of keeper gag grouper and all those pelagics. That’s a beautiful thing,” McGuire said.
Capt. Rick Gross of the charter boat Fishy Business out of Catchers Marina said there has been lot of Spanish mackerel off the beaches, where water temperatures dropped to as low as 73 degrees with prolonged northwest winds. “That usually turns them off to begin with, but when it moderates, the fish start biting again,” Gross said.
Gross said the beach waters also held a few kingfish, sharks and tons of tarpon from 40-150 pounds. Gross said he flat-lined half a mackerel on a wire leaders with a 2/0 or 3/0 hooks for tarpon or sharks.
Gross also said he went 3 miles off the beaches and saw about an acre of threadfins showering as though gamefish were running through. “I’ve never seen that many threadfins,” Gross said. “But all I kept catching was mackerel.”
The kingfish should come through in better numbers soon, Gross said.
Gross is still seeing snook, but he hasn’t been targeting them because of the snook kill earlier this year. He said is seems to have affected snook between 22-25 inches.
Finally, Gross said it has been the best trout-fishing season he’s seen in a long time.
Capt. Scott Moore said he’s been fishing mostly off the beaches for big kingfish, barracudas, sharks and Spanish mackerel out to 3 miles. Moore heard a report from Capt. Jack in Cortez that there was a huge school of redfish about 5 miles offshore. “There also are a lot of lemon sharks,” Moore said. “Those are the ones that were protected, so now there are tons of them everywhere.”
Moore reported catching six kingfish to 30 pounds off the Anna Maria beaches Oct. 9. He said the larger ones have been scattered.
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