Boca Grande and Charlotte Harbor

Capt. Van Hubbard
March 28, 2004
Boca Grande - Saltwater Fishing Report

Boca Grande Spring snook action picks up.

Snook and reds are biting; Spring is here. March 28th.

Sorry to be out so long but I had some surgery on my hand and was off the water awhile. Everything is healing fine and I started back to fishing Monday March 22. We have had to work around the east winds and catching has not been easy. The quality has been great. We brought a nice 28 inch snook home for the Fred and 12 year old son Will on the Monday trip. They had some nice almost big enough snook. They also caught some trout, flounder and big jacks. We had a ball it’s so nice to share time with father and son fishing.

Tuesday, Dr. Norval Marr of St. Pete. Brought his girlfriends grandson down for a Spring break outing. We got off to a slow start as both of my bait well pumps die together. I replaced them and our day went well. The cooler mornings are challenging and we worked to get bites. Again some close snook and nice jacks. Norval even got some jacks on flies; we could watch them strike it made the morning. We kept trying spots until James hooked up a big snook. My prayers were answered and they had a beautiful 32 inch snook to take back to Gamma’s for dinner.

Wednesday Michael Trask and friends Dr. Ed and Conner all of Nova Scotia, Canada decide to try their luck in a much warmer climate. Ed got an over slot red on the first Cast, I ask him to get us a lotto ticket and he laughed. We poled a ways and Will caught another big red. We saw several others but they were shy. We tried some other n spots and finally got a nice red on an oyster bar. The snook were almost big enough but fun. We finally went up the creek and found some hungry snook and jacks. Ed landed a nice 27 inch snook and everyone got bites. We moved up stream slightly and got even better action. A few snook but big hungry jacks to keep rods bent. Several double headers. Everyone had a ball plus a nice snook and red for dinner. Live is good and fishing is improving every day.

Thursday Dr. Marr brought Bud and Bo Rutland to share a day on our beautiful Charlotte Harbor waters. We still had the winds but nice baits so we stayed in the lees and picked at the fish as they teased us. The AM started off slow but picked up as some clouds moved in. we got a nice slot snook and a few short ones. Then the jacks moved in and we really had a ball. Some were right at 10 pounds. We played with double and even triple hook ups for more than an hour. We had dinner and sore arms; a successful day. Everyone was smiling and talking about their big one.

Friday Don Mersman, his mom and friend Gloria meet me at Stump pass Marina at 8 AM. I had already gotten out minnows and we started off fishing, only to be interrupted but a Bait pump failure. We stopped and replaced the pump and started off again. While idling out of the marina I returned a cell phone call from a friend and it turned out he had more snook than he wanted to play with “did we want to help” we thanked him and after a short ride south we joined in. The fish were plentiful but shy. Teasing us one here and two there. They would turn on and the dolphin would move in to share the excitement. We would carefully release undersized fish and wait a spell before trying again. it did sneak a few but we took our time to protect most. We finally got a keeper and decided to move on. No hot bite but the best one so far. We tried a few more places then hit a hot spot that was cooking. We had small snook popping all around for a half hour. The best bite of the year to date. Not the size we wanted but nice twenty inch average; tons of fun. Double headers and all. Jumping, running and making our trip. We tried the hot jack spot but only small ones today. We hit one more hole on the way home but birds were bad and wind just had this captain beat. We had more fish today than any two days together. Things are getting right and winds are backing off.

Saturday I participated in a citizens work shop on Lemon Bay. We had expert speakers and then broke into groups to discuss recommendations on how to help our bay. It was educational and everyone felt we offered good suggestions.

Sunday a regular Spring customer called to see if she and her mom could slip in a trip this week. As the rest of the week was already booked she ask if we could try today? we slipped out and lucked into a school of snook. They were not chewing but we picked one here and there. Finally got a nice 28 incher for d=inner and moved to try for pompano, no luck there so we went looking for reds. We settled for a few more smaller snook and called it a day. The water was clear and green. We saw manatees, eagles, swallow tail kite, osprey, frigate birds and much more between fish.

Let’s Go Fishin’ soon. Captain Van Hubbard

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