Boca Grande and Charlotte Harbor

Capt. Van Hubbard
July 18, 2007
Boca Grande - Saltwater Fishing Report

tarpon are still available.

Web report for7-18-07

Warm weather with good snook and tarpon fishing.

We are enjoying some seasonal warm afternoons but our summer fishing has been as hot also. Tarpon have not been as consistent as we like but we have had some red hot bites. Snook are gathering in impressive numbers with some big trophy fish putting big smiles on lucky anglers. We did find a few nice snapper for dinner yesterday plus plenty of dolphin and manatees for observation.

Silver king has become like mining its great when we find hungry fish. They are still here in large numbers just biting better at inconsistent times. Tarpon are still abundant around Boca Grande pass; dropping in and out in all directions at various times. Some are scattered around all other local passes also. Migrations of single fish are cruising north daily. Most of last weeks clients hooked up and landed tarpon some big ones.

Jim Hennesy and friend Jeff traveled from Texas to catch the king. Our morning trip was slow so we set up and evening trip. We have had some normal rainy afternoons with a few abnormal dry evenings. The tides and the weather cooperated and we found some hungry fish. They made us work for our bites but both anglers landed tarpon before we called it a day. We even got to pay back a friend that had called us over to schools of tarpon last year with Jim. Nice to give back, it’s great for Jim to get action as he only gets a day per year to mine silver kings.

Matt Klasnick brought his friends Rob and Dave down from the Tampa Bay area for some hot fishing. We found fish right away but they made us earn our bites. Rob landed the first one out of a big school of fish. Then we lost that school in the choppy waters. We just found another and settled in to present our crabs. Matt had a bite but it did not hook up solid. We hooked up solid immediately Matt landed a big silver king. We worked to hook Dave up and finally succeeded. I am fishing 50 braid on new Quantum Boca reels and we had already landed two nice fish before Dave’s. Well Dave must have hooked the mother of all tarpon because she pulled us around for almost 30 minutes and we could not budge her on inch. She stayed down and followed the rest of the school. We added drag and then more in an attempt to get her out and up. We finally broke her off trying to get her out and up.

John and Holly Coats also came from Texas for some fun on our waters. John wanted a tarpon and his wonderful wife took him to our tarpon filled waters. Again we found plenty of fish; again we worked for our bites. We did succeed and got John his silver king. It was hot and we retired to the Stump Pass Marina and Grille for refreshment with good music to finish off the trip. They are planning next year’s trip already.

We snook fished with Adrian Huber and friend on Monday. We worked for our bites but did hit a double header of huge snook as a light rain bounced the barometer. I’ll add pics on the web site. The big mamas where awesome and released carefully after they posed. We did get a few other fish but these were to trophies.

Yesterday Tim Manaka and family joined me all the way from California. Tim wanted their children to enjoy the real Florida not Orlando’s version. We caught some snapper for dinner. We found hundreds but caught a few snook. We observed dolphin, osprey and manatees. We even went down to the fish house at Placida and added a few pounds of fresh shrimp to dinner. They are already planning to visit again in October. Life is warm but great. Let’s Go Fishin’ soon. Captain Van Hubbard.

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