Ft. Myers - Offshore

Capt. Rick Featherstone
January 8, 2003
Fort Myers - Saltwater Fishing Report

Happy New Year!

Greetings;

It was great to see all of my Christmas anglers return. One of the great things about guiding is you get to meet wonderful people and they become friends over the years. Fishing over this holiday season was very productive. Big cold fronts swept through our area and at times churned up the Gulf pretty good and the high pressure behind those fronts made the bite tough as usual, but with patience and perseverance we did quite well. We lost only one day due to heavy seas. On the inshore ledges, rock, piles and structures the sheepshead bite was inconsistent. One day it would be fast and furious, the next pretty slow. On the slower days I switched to snapper and silver trout for action, then would target cobia, triple tail, gag grouper and a few bull redfish for the bigger rod benders. I like to slow troll with a big lipped bait or strip bait behind a planer while looking for triple tail and cobia. If my have anglers with the patience for it, that kind of fishing can be very rewarding. Sight fishing is my favorite way to fish.

Out on the middle reefs there were loads of undersize grouper, snapper, grunts, trigger fish, etc. for action, but the big story was bull redfish. These are not the backwater slot sized fish but big drag ripping smile producing fish that are rarely under twenty pounds, with some exceeding forty! Pinfish and just plain squid brought most of the bites.

Offshore over the deeper ledges, hard bottom, and rock piles the action was as close to nonstop as it gets. Grouper, both red and gags, limits of lane, mangrove, and mutton snapper, porgies, trigger fish, kept me very busy keeping hooks baited and counting fish. While on those spots we had great luck hooking big blacktip sharks also. One about a hundred pounds was fought for nearly two hours on twelve pound test, what a fight! Spanish mackerel, L.T.'s (little tunny, false albacore) were out there roving around in packs as well, and we took them as targets of opportunity when they showed up looking for a fight.

Watch the weather fronts, don't go out in ahead of one, its not worth the risk. When its nice, the fish are there, have a blast.

Sincerely,

Capt. Rick Featherstone

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