Great Early Spring Fishing for Snook and Redfish in Naples
Capt. Todd Geroy
February 26, 2012
Naples - Saltwater Fishing Report
We had another great week of unseasonably warm weather in SW Florida and with water temperatures reaching 75 degrees in the backwaters, my anglers made some great catches.
The main event has still been the numerous large snook that have been available and challenging my anglers on most every trip lately! We have been hooking up with them along the shallow mangrove shorelines as well as some of the deeper back country holes. Live sardines (pilchards) are the bait of choice. While some of these hard running bruisers have beat us up and escaped, we did catch and release some big fish running to 15 lbs!
13 year old Phillip Hendricks released a 10 lb. snook...
Mike Dyer with a 15 lber...
Jill Dyer with a 35 incher...
A reoccurring topic of discussion onboard in the last year has been regarding the current moratorium on the snook imposed after the massive kill during the severe cold weather of 2010. While the population of snook seems to be on the rebound in my waters with so many quality fish being caught now, there is still a noticeable lack of fish in other areas, especially further south. I believe that the moratorium should continue for at least a two more years or until there is an obvious recovery throughout the region.
As far as our local population of snook, I explain that it would be easy to quickly diminish the stocks as they are very territorial. During a single week, I usually run 10 trips, if we kept a limit of 1 fish per angler per trip… Well you can do the math. We would quickly destroy this great fishery. For now, let's enjoy catching these prized gamefish and continue to release them to thrill another angler!
Redfish made a strong showing last week as well. With the new moon, strong high tides drove the reds to feed along the flooded mangrove shorelines during the afternoons. With the high water, casts had to be right on the edge of the bushes and into narrow pockets. Good casts were often rewarded with some nice keeper sized reds.
This redfish had a total of 22 spots!
We also found some nice trout in some of the deeper backcountry channels. Along with them, schools of big jack crevalle and lady fish are keeping lines tight.
Capt. Todd Geroy
Target Species:
Snook, Redfish
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