October brings a variety of fish inshore to Southwest Florida
Capt. Bill Russell
October 4, 2009
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report
October in Southwest Florida means fish are on the move. With lots of bait and predators all kinds of opportunities present themselves.
This week we found success with redfish, mangrove snapper, gag grouper, sea trout and sharks. Everything except snook, for whatever reason the snook bite was tough for us all week.
We caught big snapper in northern Pine Island Sound , big enough that offshore snapper anglers would be jealous. We also caught our first inshore keeper size grouper of Fall and also caught a couple more just under-size. That's a good sign of things to come.
Trout were holding over the deeper edges of bars with live shiners working best on the falling tide.
The redfish are schooling up in the northern Sound the trick is finding them. The best bet is to look for schools pushing bait up on open water bars during he rising tide. Most of these fish are well over the legal slot. We did catch redfish from twenty-four to twenty-six inches near the fish shacks in he Sound.
Cut bait (pinfish or ballyhoo) and live pinfish easily outfished live shiners. One of the larger snapper took a pinfish that was intended for a grouper that was the size of my hand.
Man, there is a ton of bull sharks on the flats. Look for them cruising near the huge schools of mullet that are around the Keys and Islands throughout the Sound. If its calm you can spot their dorsal and tail protruding from the water, a great challenge for the sight fisherman.
This week the Fall fishing should continue to improve as more fish push down our coast.
For charter information contact us at (239)283-7960 or www.fishpineisland.com.
"Catch The Action" with Captain Bill Russell
Target Species:
Mangrove snapper, grouper, redfish
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