Marco Island, Ft. Myers & Boca Grande

Capt. Scott Hughes
February 23, 2005
Fort Myers - Saltwater Fishing Report

Snook are on the move!

The snook fishing really picked up this week after a few days of warmer weather. We caught a few larger snook in the Marco Island area and bunches of smaller snook In Pine Island Sound. Lots of trout, redfish and jack crevelle kept us busy for most of the week as well.

The snook fishing was a nice change of pace on most of the trips this week. Scott Eden managed to take top honors with a 33-inch 12-pounder that hit a golden bream Exude slug pegged to a 1/4 oz jighead. On another trip we landed over 30 small snook using pearl and white Zoom Super Flukes. I'm sure that if i would have had live sardines the numbers would have been double that.

Redfish have been pretty good as well in pine Island Sound and Charlotte Harbor. Soft plastics have caught the most for me, but shrimp on a jighead will catch them when the bite gets slow. We found reds in all areas this week. On low tide fish the dropoffs and during high tide hit the bushes.

Trout were almost a nuisance at times this week in Pine Island Sound. We were trying to catch redfish and trout kept hitting our lures. We probably averaged over 30 trout per day while we wer trying to catch redfish. We did land a handfull of "gators" which are what we call trout over 20-inches.

Jack crevelle filled in the gaps this week on my Marco Island trips. We found jacks from 5-7 pounds in most of the deeper runs of the upper 10,000 Islands. We also hits scattered jacks on the rocky points of the same passes. Live sardines were the key to getting the jacks. We also caught a few on soft plastics.

Forecast: I did see a few tarpon this week in the Marco Island area. The water is almost 70 degrees so it won't be long now. We should start seeing good numbers of tarpon migrating into the area by the first week of March. Snook, redfish and trout will also continue to get better as the water begins to warm.

Good Luck!

Capt. Scott Hughes

Blackwater Charters

941-575-2389 home

941-628-4247 cell

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