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Fishing Report - Naples, Ft. Myers, Bonita Beach & Estero Bay
Capt. Dave Hanson
December 30, 2005
Fort Myers - Saltwater Fishing Report
Kings are here! cobia, lots of lanes, mangs, trout: Bonita Beach, SW FL
The photo shown at right is of a 26 inch gag grouper, caught on an offshore trip, mid-December.
Saturday, 12/24, we got into some king mackerel, fishing in about 40 feet out of New Pass. I have been expecting the kings to show up, as they usually do this time of year. We hooked four of them, all over 30 inches, but three of them snapped the line before they were boated. We successfully battled and kept one at 34 inches. We also caught keeper mangrove snapper and porkfish, and released gag shorts to 20 inches.
Monday's small craft and high surf advisories kept me in port, in the interest of safety. But, Tuesday was relatively calm offshore, and I headed out about eight miles from New Pass. We released about twenty sheepshead that were just short of keeper size, as well as a 30 inch cobia, and caught keeper lane snapper and Spanish mackerel, keeper silver trout, whiting and grunts, all on live shrimp.
Wednesday, fishing a wreck over thirty miles out of New Pass with Bob Rushlow, Fred Banker, Steve Christman, and Doug Johnson, Jr., we used live shrimp and cut bait to clean up on snapper. We caught 3 limits of mangrove snapper, and a cooler full of 51 keeper lanes. We released grunts and gag shorts.
Thursday, with seas 4-6 feet offshore, and high winds/low tide causing muddy bay conditions, I remained in port. The seas for Friday were predicted at 2 feet, but I faced a 3-5 foot swell all the way out from the beach to about 26 miles west of New Pass, where I fished in 50 feet. We caught eighteen nice mangrove snapper, all about 14 inches, and some large grunts. We didn’t get any grouper, although we were broken off twice by a couple of good sized ones.
With a minus-one tide forecast for Saturday, I couldn’t risk getting the offshore boat out, and I expected the bay conditions to be shallow and muddy, so I remained in port once again.
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