Sarasota & Venice, FL Fishing Report for 5/4 through 5/11/2003
Fly anglers on the Snook Fin-Addict caught and released redfish and snook during the past week. Although the numbers weren’t high, the fishing was rewarding since it was mostly sight fishing along mangrove shorelines. Night snook fishing with a fly was strong and tarpon are beginning to become dependable along the beaches.
Jeff Yonover, from Flossmoor, IL, fished Sarasota Bay with me on Sunday and Monday. We scouted the coastal gulf waters on Sunday morning and found a nice school of tarpon. Although we worked them with a fly for mare than an hour, they wouldn’t eat so we opted to fish the bay. With a very high tide, we found that fish were buried in the mangroves making catching them tough. Jeff caught and released one red on a chartreuse/white Clouser fly.
We stuck with the same game plan for Monday and Jeff’s wife, Melanie, joined us. After searching for about 3 hours and not finding any tarpon, we retreated to Sarasota Bay. Jeff pounded the mangroves hard with a fly and caught and released a snook and a redfish on a chartreuse/white Clouser fly.
Al Saunders, from Bradenton, FL, and Gordy Gottschalk, from Holmes Beach, FL, joined me for an evening snook trip in Venice on Tuesday evening. As soon as darkness fell, the action got hot. Snook were feeding heavily on glass minnows and shrimp around a dock in Blackburn Bay. The pair caught and released 10 or 12 snook on Grassett’s Grass Minnow and Skitterbug flies. Not bad since it was their first time ever night snook fishing and a long time since their last fly fishing outing.
Thursday’s trip with a fly angler came up empty. We worked two nice schools of tarpon in the coastal gulf waters and despite getting 5 or 6 good shots at them, we had no takers. We spent a couple of hours in the bay working mangrove shorelines and had one redfish on, which broke off. A tough day! Sometimes early season tarpon can be finicky.
Jim Sloman, from Belmont, MA, and his son, Beck, fished with me on Saturday morning. Jim was armed with my 12-weight fly rod, while Beck backed him up with spinning tackle. We had a couple of schools give us a fleeting shot early and had some better shots later in the morning with a live crab, but nothing bit. In all, we worked about 4 schools. We moved to the bay to get some action before or day ended. Jim and Beck caught and released trout, bluefish, jack crevalle and ladyfish on Clouser flies and Cotee jigs with grubs at the Middleground flat.
The number of tarpon schools is increasing daily as we head toward a full moon next week. With the water temperature at 84 degrees in the gulf, tarpon fishing is due to explode. Flats fishing for reds, snook and trout should continue to be a good option, particularly early in the day.
Tight Lines,
Capt. Rick Grassett
Snook Fin-Addict Guide Service, Inc.
(941) 923-7799
E-mail [email protected]
www.snookfin-addict.com or www.flyfishingflorida.net
