Ft. Myers - Offshore

Capt. Rick Featherstone
September 4, 2003
Fort Myers - Saltwater Fishing Report

Big Fish

Greetings;

Wow its nice to report we have been catching some great trophy fish lately. What we have lacked in general overall number, we surely have put smiles on plenty of faces with the size of our catch.

Inshore (passes, bays, canals, beaches, etc.) has been very steady with a good solid snook bite as well as a few redfish. Our trips for them have been all fly fishing and we could not have asked for better fishing. Better weather, well that has been marginal. Half the time I am ready to call the trip due to weather. Using #8 and #9 weight rods, we just rocked nice fish. I tied up some pinfish fly’s and boy have they produced. Great strikes and great fights. Most mornings we manages snook up to twelve pounds or so. That said, I slipped down the beach one evening this week and somehow managed a twenty pound fish on a white elk hair mullet look alike. This forty four inch snook is now my personal best on fly. All of our snook were released to fight another day.

Near shore (from the beach out to five miles) there is good Spanish mackerel action and lots of blue runners for the fly fisherman that loves action. Tarpon are around, and we caught three this week over eighty pounds, but patience is needed here as they are not very active.

Offshore fishing has been slower than normal I think. Huge trophy cudas on almost every trip. I am talking of fish that scaled over thirty pounds. Not the normal four foot long type that most captains say is twenty when its twelve, these fish were weighed on IGFA certified scale aboard my boat. Fly’s, eight and twelve pound spinners have done the job nicely. We had on fish on that would have been over fifty easy. There was a thirty five pound fish in the boat posing for pictures when he ate one of my home made lures. HUGE, it looked like a tarpon. When the line parted all was silent as we knew what we had missed. Permit have been tough but we did manage a eight and a twenty one pounder this week. Some cobia have presented themselves but the big story is Goliath Grouper. We hooked something like twenty seven this week, landing fifteen. If I throw out the two ten pound juvenile fish, the others averaged about two hundred pounds! These fish never cease to amaze me the power they have. Known to me for twenty five years as jewfish, a goliath grouper takes the top prize in strength. I find myself fishing for them more and more because of the delight it brings to anglers that want to test themselves against something big.

Take care and watch the weather.

Tight Lines,

Capt. Rick

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