Boca Grande and Charlotte Harbor

Capt. Van Hubbard
April 26, 2005
Boca Grande - Saltwater Fishing Report

Snook and pompano are bitting.

Web report 4-25-05

Finally we have great fishing for snook and pompano.

Weather has been the controlling factor for local fishing. We had good weather and good fishing recently; at least most of the time. The bigger tides associated with the Full Moon ushered in excellent action. Fishing has not been as consistent as we expect in spring but we have enjoyed some great action.

Several good days stand out. Bob Wray and neighbor Jim had a great day of pompano catching on the 19th. We found lots of fish, in fact to many. The ladyfish were so thick we had to leave pompano because the ladies beat the pomps to our jigs every time we cast. The jigs never hit the bottom with ladyfish pouncing every cast. We ended up with 9 fat, tasty treats for their dinners. The next day we searched much of the morning for snook in Lemon Bay with little success and traveled back to Bull bay to get a few small ones and a trophy 34 inch. Fish and Wildlife Law Enforcement did inspect us and he smiled at the just less than 34 inch snook as we measured it with him. Just right! Later we got our limit of 12 pompano to round out the trip.

Friday we tried the pompano but they drove us crazy. We could locate them but not get em to sit still. Ladyfish were a nightmare so we went back to snook. We got some smaller ones and an oversized one but no slot fish. We did end up with a mess of plump pompano for their dimmers.

Saturday Clark Smith and friends from the Atlanta area wanted to catch some fish. I picked them up on Boca Grande at the old Miller’s Marina. We found some tryout and caught about 20 and decided to look for bigger fish. We tried some reds along a deep mangrove shoreline but they had lockjaw. Several snook kept us busy and entertained the guys. As we were after fish not dinner we went to try some oversized snook I located previously. We were lucky and had some big minnows to coerce a few bites. They landed, photographed two-yard stick snook. It was the high light of their vacation. 2 of the 4 guys had trophies and they all had special memories to carry back to share with family and friends.

Sunday the weather got us and I got caught up on some boat work.

Let’s go Fishin’ soon. Captain Van Hubbard ,www.captvan.com>

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