Pensacola Fishing Report – Deep Sea / Offshore Fishing, Grouper, Snapper & Triggerfish | Week Ending August 9, 2026
Deep Sea / Offshore Fishing Charters Pensacola
The week started out rough, but conditions finally settled down by Wednesday and gave us several good opportunities to get offshore. We ran three charters this week — one 6-hour federal waters trip and two 5-hour state waters trips — and all three produced very nice results.
Our 6-hour charter had to be shifted by a day because of high winds and the turbulent seas that came with them. Once conditions improved, though, the Gulf treated us well.
We also made an attempt to get offshore Friday. We worked hard trying to outmaneuver the thunderstorms, but the winds continued blowing well above what had been forecast. Eventually, we abandoned the effort. Sometimes the right fishing decision is knowing when to quit trying to make a trip happen.
Dolphins, Sharks and Plenty of Fish
The fish weren’t the only ones interested in what we were doing this week.
Dolphins found us during one of our state-water charters, while sharks moved in on us during the federal trip. In both cases, we eventually had to leave the area to get away from them and give our customers a chance to actually get their fish into the boat.
Despite the uninvited guests, we put together a remarkably diverse species list over the three trips:
Red snapper, vermilion snapper, red porgy, almaco jack, greater amberjack, banded rudderfish, red grouper, snowy grouper, scamp grouper, juvenile cobia, sand perch, rock sea bass, snakefish (bluntnose lizardfish), lionfish, gray triggerfish and little tunny (bonita).
Not everything on that list makes the cooler, but that’s part of what makes offshore fishing in the Gulf so interesting. Some of those fish broaden the list of species we’ve caught aboard Double D, some are just plain neat to see, and quite a few of the fish that don’t “make the team” fight every bit as hard as the ones that do.
We caught fish this week using a mixture of cut bait, paddle tails and slow-pitch jigs. Our cut bait included squid, bonita, sand perch and tomtate grunts.
Red Snapper Season Changes — and Why the Big Girls Matter
Florida’s 2026 Gulf summer red snapper season ended July 31 for private recreational anglers and charter vessels without a federal reef-fish permit. Florida has additional fall dates beginning September 1 for anglers and vessels eligible to participate in that state-managed season.
For federally permitted for-hire vessels like ours, the federal Gulf red snapper season remains open through October 25 and is scheduled to close at 12:01 a.m. on October 26, 2026.
Gray triggerfish also returned to the menu August 1. The Gulf recreational season is open August 1 through December 31, subject to any in-season closure.
With red snapper being such an important part of our Gulf fishery, there’s something about them that we think is worth sharing.
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, red snapper can live as long as 57 years, and the older, larger females are enormously important to reproduction. A single 24-inch female red snapper, approximately eight years old, can produce as many eggs as 212 17-inch females that are approximately five years old.
That’s a pretty remarkable difference.
When we’re fishing personally, we love having the opportunity to let the big girls go. Those older females give the fishery its best chance to remain healthy and productive for years to come.
As charter captains, that’s important to us for another very practical reason: we need these fish to still be here when our customers call us to take them fishing.
One of the Best Parts of Charter Fishing
The fish are obviously a big part of what we do, but one of the things we enjoy most about running charters is the people we get to meet.
This week we had brothers from Arkansas who had served in the Navy aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, along with their pilot friend. We had a couple of Ragin’ Cajuns, a grandfather and grandson from Louisiana, and a nurse and her family visiting from Missouri.
We’re fortunate as charter captains to meet people from all over this great country, put them on the Gulf, show them what our fishery has to offer and hopefully send them home with some good fish, good stories and memories they’ll keep for a long time.
This week gave us a little bit of everything — rough weather, weather delays, dolphins, sharks, a long list of species and three very productive offshore charters once the Gulf finally gave us a chance to get out there.
That’s offshore fishing, and we wouldn’t trade it for anything.
– Captain Paul & Captain Eric
Double D Fishing Charters
Inshore Fishing Charters Pensacola
We did two scouting trips this week in Escambia Bay and the Escambia River Delta. Again, not much to report.
We even broke out the fly rods and tried targeting something different but we didn’t see much in the way of fish.
Our preference for inshore trips remains late fall after a couple of cold fronts blow in and stay for a few days, through the winter, and until we start seeing fish movement back to the south in late March. These trips can be excellent outings producing more reds and specs than at any other time of the year.
We will certainly accommodate customers who specifically want an inshore trip, but during the heat of summer our preference remains offshore fishing whenever Gulf conditions allow it.
To see pictures of some of our catches, visit our social media pages:
