Nothing like a 844lb Shark to make your day when fishing. This has been a banner year for large sharks along the Emerald Coast. The story has been picked up by the national media.

Quoting the Kansas City Star:

Bruner and his fishing buddies were on a 52-foot charter boat with Capt. Robert Hill, about 70 miles southwest of this beach city in the Florida Panhandle.

The fishermen first noticed the big mako because it kept eating grouper and scamp they had hooked.

“It was like ‘Jaws,’” Hill said.

Hill hooked a two-foot amberine on as bait and tossed it out. The shark eventually hit it.

After the long fight, the shark was gaffed and eventually gave up after its tail was roped. But even then, the men could not get the big shark in the boat. They tied it to the stern with three ropes and made the four-hour trip back to land.

Be sure to link through to the article for more pictures.

While the traditional North American boating season runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day, September and October mark one of our favorite times on the Gulf Coast. Daytime temperatures are ‘moderating’ into the mid-80’s and nighttime lows on the water finally get to the low 70’s.

When the weather so beckons, we usually find ourselves running down to Spectre Island, a small island in Santa Rosa Sound on the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway about 5 miles west of Fort Walton Beach. Spectre offers a deep water harbor off the ICW and quiet beaches for the kids. Evening during the summer, we usually have the island to ourselves if we go out during the week. Click on the photo to see some highlight pictures from one of our trips out.

Our partner website EarthNC.com has been scouring the web for user-generated Google My Maps of interest to boaters. They’ve started posting their finds in their ‘Featured Maps‘ section. Even better, with EarthNC’s new TakItWithMe My Maps Embedding Tool you can paste any My Map on your own website with easy links to Google Earth, a large map, and even download to GPS in some cases (see our example below). Read the rest of this entry »

We missed the Emerald Coast Poker Run this year due to conflicting schedules with the Offshore Super Series powerboat races over in Orange Beach. By most accounts the poker run was a big success this year, but it was tempered by an accident in Destin Pass during aerial filming (not part of the official event). Fortunately no one was killed, but some of the passengers did receive major injuries.

The accident victims were gracious enough to release the video of the accident to help promote boating safety. Read the rest of this entry »

We put together a short video clip from the Sunday afternoon Offshore Super Series race at Orange Beach. The sound doesn’t really do the race justice, but it does give a good sense of the action as boats got plenty of air time in the 2-4′ seas. Be sure to check out our Offshore Racing Category for more photos and video.

Sunday’s races were anything but boring as the competitive spirit and choppy seas combined for great action. DestinSharks had a front-row seat at Turn 4 thanks to Rod Koberg from SouthCoastSegway on his 42′ Trawler ‘Antares’. It will take us a few days to go completely through the 650+ photos from yesterday’s race and the more than 1000 photos for the weekend, but in the mean time, please click on the photo at left to enjoy our ‘Sunday Race Highlights’ album. These photos have not been cropped, so click on the thumbnails to see the full pictures. Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to the wonders of cell-phone data plans, we’re able to offer highlights from today’s opening of Thunder on the Gulf 2007 - Offshore Super Series at Orange Beach, Alabama. Spectators braved the heat and sun in large numbers and parking was scarce along the waterfront. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a busy weekend for boating from Orange Beach to Destin along the Gulf Coast. We’re heading over to Big Lagoon State park for the weekend to camp and cover the Offshore Super Series Thunder on the Gulf Races. Look for race photos and coverage on DestinSharks early next week.

This weekend is also the weekend for the Emerald Coast Poker Run - one of the largest such events in the world. If history is any guide, over 400 boats will ply the waters between Destin and Pensacola to get their cards.

We wish everyone a great time on the water - boat safe, sober, and hydrated!

The Offshore Super Series comes to Orange Beach this month from the 16th to the 19th. Dry pits are open at the Wharf Marina on Friday, followed by on-water tests and racing on Saturday and Sunday in the Gulf. We’ve put together a map of the race course over at EarthNC including the spectator line if you’re planning to take your own boat out to watch.

For official event information and schedules, please visit the Thunder on the Gulf Website. For more OSS race action, visit our coverage of the 2006 Championships in Destin. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s that time of year again and we are quickly approaching Boat Week 2007 and the Emerald Coast Poker Run. We had a fun time on the water yesterday collecting up a few more pictures for our Poker Run map available at EarthNC. The map includes this year’s stops, the new Poker-Run related no-wake zones, and photos of local bridges and ramps. Look for us to be out photographing on the 18th in our Regal 2760 ‘Southern Comfort’ and check back for our photo gallery to see if we photographed your boat.