Marco Island, Ft. Myers & Boca Grande

Capt. Scott Hughes
January 30, 2003
Fort Myers - Saltwater Fishing Report

Cold water but fishing is still good!

56 degree water temperatures have made fishing tough the past few weeks but overall the fishing is still very good. Don't expect to catch warm water species like snook and tarpon. But, if your not a snob about what you catch then it can be quite rewarding out there. Redfish, sheephead and trout are hungry and we caught pretty good numbers of them everyday last week.

Fishing out of Marco Island has been best for redfish. The key is to get into shallow mud bays that warm the water in the late afternoon. High rising tides in the P.M. produced redfish up to 27 inches. We haven't been loading the boat with them but we're catching 4 or 5 per trip. The surprise has been the size. Most of the winter reds are usually under the 18-inch limit but the reds last week were more like 23-27 inchers. Shrimp fished on lead heads caught most of them with soft plastics getting a few. We have also been seeing some very large snook for this time of year. Most are pushing 8-10 pounds. They are very spooky but we did get some of them to hit a free lined hand picked shrimp. Sheephead are in the deep holes entering into the back bays. Shrimp on the bottom or a jig will catch them. Ladyfish are feeding around the same holes on falling tides.

Fishing out of Pine Island Sound in Ft Myers is producing almost record numbers of trout. They are following the same early afternoon pattern as the reds in the 10,000 Islands. Record numbers doesn't mean record size though. For every ten trout only one or two are keepers. The other day we caught 65 trout in and hour but only 5 were legal. They haven't been picky. Various plastics, bucktail jigs and live shrimp are catching them. They are holding around cuts through the grass flats. Pine Island Sound sheephead are starting to come alive around the major passes. We caught 25 in about an hour the only day that we targeted them. Most of them were around keeper size with a few pushing 3-5 pounds. We caught them on jigs and shrimp but live ones on the bottom would have probably been better.

The forecast for the next 5 days sounds excellent. Everyday should be in the middle 70's and hopefully that will boost the water temps a little. If that happens expect some good reports on redfish and maybe even some snook.

Good Luck!

Capt. Scott Hughes

Blackwater Charters

941-628-4247 cell

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