Marco Island, Ft. Myers & Boca Grande

Capt. Scott Hughes
July 13, 2003
Fort Myers - Saltwater Fishing Report

Catch of a Lifetime!

This past Friday I got a nice 5.3 pound baby girl. It was quite a surprise being that my wife was not due to have our first child until August 11th. She was small but in perfect health and everything is fine with both of them. Needless to say that I didn't get any fishing in over the weekend which is fine with me since weekends aren't my favorite times to fish. However, I was able to get in 6 charters which is a nice surprise because it is usually much slower after June 30th.

The overall fishing this past week was not as good as the week before the fourth but the tarpon fishing rebounded somewhat. Therefore, we spent most of our time trying score with a silver king. We found fishable numbers of tarpon over 100-pounds in Charlotte Harbor. Out of three days of fishing we hooked 3 and landed 1. Ken Yedisky was able to land a 160-170 pounder in less than 45 minutes. The big tarpon hit a freelined thread herring. The key to the fishing in the harbor is to hunt for the bait schools and fish around the diving birds and mackerel schools. There have been plenty of ladyfish, mackerel and jacks hitting the bait also.

With much weaker tides early this week, snook fishing was not up to par. We were able to land a few each day but with the fishing not that "hot" we spent most of our time looking for the tarpon. We picked up a few along the beach each day using pinfish. If we would have given more time snook fishing we could probably have better but when it's a little slow its better to focus your efforts to one goal.

There are pretty good numbers of keeper trout on the grass flats of Charlotte Harbor and Pine Island Sound. We caught them on a variety of soft plastics from Love's Lure's.

I have heard a number of reports of excellent redfishing as far north in the harbor as the Peace River. I have not had time to give them a shot myself but I plan to on my trips this week. Usually this time of year pinfish, small sardines and plastics work well. It won't be long and we will start findeing extremely large schools on the bars and flats.

The fishing forecast this week is pretty good. The tides are better for the snook and tarpon and according to the reports the reds are in. For the tarpon, try to fish very calm days that have a high of at least 93 degrees. That will get'em happy!

Good Luck!

Capt. Scott Hughes

Blackwater Charters

941-575-2389

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