‘Phenomenal fishing.’ Manatee anglers end 2025 on a high note deep in the Gulf

With a beautiful weather window after Christmas and a red snapper season that was open until the new year, many Gulf anglers took advantage and made one last deep trip west for 2025.

I was one of them and saw countless others out to fill the freezer before a strong end of the year cold front.

My trip was organized early with Saturday being the day. With family from out of town, we joined Tom Howard and left from the Manatee River a bit after 7 a.m.

Weather was perfect, cool, sunny and light wind. The bait providers were backed up with boat traffic so we caught our own, making quick work before pushing west into the Gulf.

Our first stop was in about 125 feet of water. The goal was to get red snapper and red grouper then try for yellowtail snapper. If that went well, a sunset stop for hogfish was the final goal.

But there was a problem. Red snapper weren’t prevalent or not of the size we wanted for the first half of the day. On the first spot, we landed one keeper so we pushed west to 135 feet. There we found plenty of red snapper, but it was a nursery and all small fish. A show of fish on the bottom nearby turned into large red grouper, which were a welcome sight and added to the fish box.

From there the option was obvious, we needed to go deeper. Stopping in 160 feet was nonstop bites, but this time it was small red grouper. My nephew, Charlie Womble, dropped down a 2-ounce jig and hooked a fish that made some bizarre runs. He worked it up through the water column when we saw a blackfin tuna, but it was hooked in the side and not in the mouth, making the fight more difficult. Eventually it was worked boat side and Howard stuck the gaff in it, exciting us as the bonus tuna.

Instead of leaving, we focused our attention on the flatlines, soon landing a second bonus tuna but losing another.

When the tuna seemed to move on, so did we. The fish shows on the bottom were nonstop, but it was more small red grouper than I can ever remember.

ventually we found a school of red snapper, but the sharks made it difficult to land the 12 we needed. The bigger fish were eaten, but one big one and more between 16 and 18 inches filled the box. We decided to head east and back shallower.

Stopping at a big ledge, I went to lighter jigs and shrimp. The first drop was a nice yellowtail snapper. Howard was using whitebait and landed a pair of big mangrove snapper and a pair of large gag grouper that were released. For once, sharks weren’t present, but goliath grouper were. Using a big rod my dad and brother played with a goliath and landed it, probably about 200 pounds.

It was a decent snapper bite and many delicious porgies came up from the bottom, so we stayed until sunset. The final total was about 18 yellowtail snapper, a couple mangrove snapper, a limit of red snapper, half a limit of red grouper and many other bonus fish capped off by a pair of tuna.

Open seasons have now changed with the calendar and anglers will focus on more nearshore species for 2026. But the end to 2025 was phenomenal fishing.