Boca Grande and Charlotte Harbor

Capt. Van Hubbard
November 3, 2006
Boca Grande - Saltwater Fishing Report

Boca Grande/Charlotte Harbor snook and red fishing is great.

Charlotte Harbor/Boca Grande fishing could not be better for us.

When we have enjoyed good weather it has been great fishing action. I am hearing about mackerel and kings off shore; we just have not been able to get the right clients and low winds together. Inside has produced none stop action several days recently. Snook and reds are hungry and eating to fatten up for winter.

Last week we had bigger minnows but catching was not as good. The stronger tides this week and moving barometer really helped us. The storm last weekend really cleaned up area waters and the fish are responding. Lots of new baitfish showed up but they are mostly small. We found miles of tiny minnows on the beaches this week. Be careful or you will learn about hundreds of tiny minnows gilled in your cast net. It’s blowing today but from the north so it should not stir the Gulf up very bad. I expect catching to pick up by Monday.

Ward Curtis of the Sable Trust Company hosted Mark and Tom Mahaffey of St. Petersburg for a days fishing in Charlotte Harbor. Mark and his father Tom helped me get started in guiding back in the early 70’s. I was living in their Carlton Arms apartments at the north end of the Skyway while attending college after my tour in the Navy. Tom Mahaffey always had nice big sportfishing yachts out back in those days. We got to know each other and their helped me get started running the big boats for them. We caught kings, snook and created some special memories while I learned about boats and fishing. We could neot get the weather and their calendars together last spring but we got it right on Wednesday. Blue skies a gently breeze and hungry fish. We got of to a red hot start with snook ever cast but the dolphin moved in and we had to leave. The dolphin eat the weaker fish we release. If you let them they will eat em all.

We moved around and picked at some small fish, one nice 25 inch red and two big 24 &26 inch trout. O yea, trout closed on this day November the First. So we decided to go looking around. I poked outside and saw a few pompano. We stopped and bought a few shrimp to sweeten or jigs and went back to catch a mess of pompano for dinner. We found and caught pompano but the dolphin kept chasing us away. We would locate a bunch catch a few then move up the beach. We ended up with eight pomps and decided to try the snook again.

This time we were blessed. Mark had said “it would be great to catch a couple of big snook too”. Tom and Ward managed a couple of beauties just over 30 inches each. We caught snook and small reds until Ward and I were worn out and my huge Dorado baitwell was empty of minnows. We headed in to clean fish and get them home for a fresh fish dinner with their families.

Thursday was almost as good. Robert Thomas, Melissa Helms and Joe Guidry of Tampa drove down to try their luck. Minnows were small but plentiful. I looked everywhere I could for some larger ones and had to go with the smaller ones. We started off with fish eating everything as fast as we could bait our hooks. Melissa got a 271/2 inch snook her first cast so we had dinner. They caught 18 – 26 inch snook and 15-19 inch reds until it got boring. We went to look for the pompano. No luck here they had totally disappeared overnight. Some lady fish had moved in and the pomps vanished. We saw a big tripletail but it refused live shrimp and minnows. It was getting challenging so I went back to try the honey hole one more time. We wrapped up the trip catching reds and snook for over and hour until the bait ran out.

This time of the year fishing is great if you can get your trip and the weather together. Sometimes it’s best to pick the date a few days before you go so we can work around the wind. I have opening now and can usually put everything together for the next day if we have to. Winter cold is close and this is the best catching until next spring, don’t miss it. Absolutely no red tide at all for now. Let’s Go Fishin’ now. Captain van Hubbard

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