Marco Island, Ft. Myers & Boca Grande

Capt. Scott Hughes
July 13, 2000
Fort Myers - Saltwater Fishing Report

Tarpon Rule!

If you want to catch a tarpon then now is the time. We have seen a resurgence of excellent tarpon fishing in both the Marco Island area and in Charlotte Harbor. If your not into tarpon (by the way, there is something wrong you) there are other species that will provide plenty of rod bending action.

Tarpon ruled this week with customers hooking at least 21 in the last three days. Most of the Marco tarpon have been about 40 pounds with a few fish pushing 70. The Charlotte Harbor fish are of a different class. Almost all of these tarpon are 100+ pounds with about one out of five over 150 pounds. Scaled sardines have been the key to the Marco Island tarpon and pinfish under a float have done very well in Charlotte Harbor. Thread herring also produced about five large tarpon on Wednesday. I recommend using at least 30-pound tackle for the Charlotte Harbor fishing but you’ll have some good fun with 10-12 pound tackle on the smaller Marco Island tarpon.

Like I mentioned earlier, if tarpon isn’t your game then snook should be this time of year. We have caught some snook this past week but most of the snook won the battles. Large snook are around all of the passes. The larger the pass the larger the snook. Small passes like Clam, Gordon, and Blind are holding hundreds of 1-5 pound fish. Larger passes like Redfish, Captiva, and Caxambas are holding thousands of fish from 1-30 pounds. Large live sardines or herring will produce the best with pinfish my second choice.

My anglers have been kept busy this week, just like last week, with some of the biggest jacks of the summer. On Tuesday customer Gary Mccue and his wife had a hard time hooking tarpon because the 15 pound jacks were literally blowing up every sardine we would pitch at a rolling tarpon. If you’re just looking for some constant action with an unbelievable fight then jacks fit the bill.

There wasn’t much else going on last week except for two species of notable value. Trout and redfish are scattered throughout the flats of Cape Romano. We managed to catch a couple of 20-inch trout using live sardines on almost every trip last week. We also spotted a few schools of large redfish on the flats but could get within casting distance. Sharks are still taking our baits in Marco Island and in Pine Island Sound.

Good Luck!

Capt. Scott Hughes

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863-946-9171

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