Marco Island, Ft. Myers & Boca Grande
Capt. Scott Hughes
September 24, 2002
Fort Myers - Saltwater Fishing Report
Backcountry Light Tackle Action!
The winds of hurracane Isadore forced anglers to focus their fishing efforts in the protection of the everglades backcountry. The fishing was generally good with catches of snook, redfish, snapper, grouper, jacks and ladyfish common.
The main targets have not changed since my last report. Snook has been the most active species, as is expected. We caught good numbers of snook everyday last week fishing the backcountry of the upper 10,000 Islands. Spanish sardines produced the best but we also caught fish on scaled sardines and thread herring. The key to catching snook this time of year is to find the bait. It doesn't really matter which kind you catch. The larger the baits the larger the snook. This week larger baits were tough to come by so the majority of our snook were below the legal slot of 26-34 inches. We averaged a little over a dozen snook per day with only a couple making the legal 26-inches. The larger fish are still offshore on the wrecks and reefs and getting to them was impossible in the 15-20 knot winds this past week.
Redfish are starting to make a good showing along with the snook. We managed to catch a few nice 24 to 26-inch reds each day using the same sardines that the snook were eating. Try fishing rock piles and oyster bars on the rising tide with shrimp on a cork or free line small sardines. When the tide gets over the bars move into the mangroves and pitch jigs tipped with a piece of shrimp and you should score.
Gag grouper are holding near larger structures in the main rivers North of Everglades City. Capt. Greg Bond reported catching lots of gags on sardines while snook fishing around large trees in deep water. He reported that most of these fish were 17 to 21-inches which is just short of the legal limit. I have found that the larger grouper will hit first and then the smaller fish eat. Its a type of pecking order. If your targeting inshore grouper and your first or second fish in a spot isn't a keeper move to another place because the chances of a bigger fish being there is releatively low.
I found lots of keeper sized mangrove snapper in the upper islands just south of Naples. They were taking sardines that we were using for snook but our bait was to larger to target the snapper. The Rookery Bay area is excellent for lrage snapper and the best baits for them is shrimp or very small shiners. I prefer to fish the sardines on a small float or use the shrimp on a 1/8 ounce lead head. I also like to fish the last of the falling tide and find the deep holes around the mangroves which concentrates the fish while they wait for the tide to rise.
The forecast for the next few weeks is good for the fishing but uncertain for the weather. We have two more tropical storms heading this way. Fishing should continue to be good as long as we are able to catch the herring and sardines. Snook fishing is usually excellent up through Christmas and we haven't even hit the run of redfish yet which peeks in October. Spanish mackerel are moving south offshore and as soon as the seas calm down I'll be out there catching them on fly.
Good Luck!
Capt. Scott Hughes
Blackwater Charters
863-946-9171
941-628-4247 cell
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