More Great February Fishing in Naples - Marco Backwaters!
Capt. Todd Geroy
February 19, 2012
Naples - Saltwater Fishing Report
I am home this morning after a 6 day marathon of 11 half day and one full day trip last week. I can't say that the fishing last week didn't have a couple ups and downs, however we had some very strong fishing all week long with a variety of fish available. Water temperatures early in the week had dropped over 10 degrees from the previous week after a strong but brief weekend cold front came through. This put the fish in a definite winter pattern for a couple of days. We changed our tactics and caught up to a dozen different species on trips early in the week. By mid week, we were back into some big snook along with jumbo trout and some decent redfish!
I left the dock Monday morning with 39 degree air temperature, bundled in several layers. George Martuccio and his wife braved the chill and once the sun started to warm things up, George was kept busy catching just about every species that swims in the back bays. Several large black drum were boated along with big sheepshead, seatrout, snook, flounder, snapper, goliath and gag grouper to name a few! We used both live shrimp and jigs tipped with shrimp.
By Wednesday, thing started to warm up a bit. I found plenty of pompano biting near the outside passes as well as some very nice sea trout in the deeper backcountry channels. Kent Middleton and his son-in-law Rocky found plenty of the previous as well as a beautiful 30 inch back country snook caught on a jig by Rocky at the end of the day!
Here's Rocky with his snook…
Thursday morning I threw the cast net and easily loaded the boat with several hundred lively pilchards. Both trips found some eager snook running up to 29 inches as well as a few redfish and sea trout. Pompano were still active in the Hurricane Pass area on the afternoon trip. Jigs tipped with shrimp produced the pompano action.
The week of trips was capped off Saturday afternoon with long time client Buck Bowen accompanied by his daughter Kerry Poole and grandson, Sam. 11 year old Sam can really handle a rod and reel and really got a work out all afternoon as the trio enjoyed non-stop action with redfish, snook and big sea trout. I don't know how many fish they boated, but it seemed that there was at least one if not three fish on the line all afternoon!
Several trout boated were ranging to 19 inches, with Sam boating the largest trout I have seen in a while. The fish measured 25 inches and weighed in at just over 5 lbs. Here is Sam with his giant specimen…
Several giant snook were also hooked and dominated us under the mangroves before Sam came through and muscled a 32 inch beauty to the boat!
Here is a thrilled Sam with his big snook before release…
I have another full week ahead of me with eager clients looking for some of the best fishing SW Florida has to offer!
Target Species:
Snook, Trout, Redfish, Pompano
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