Marco Island, Ft. Myers & Boca Grande

Capt. Scott Hughes
August 13, 2001
Fort Myers - Saltwater Fishing Report

Whale Thing!

My last three reports have been less than spectacular so we are going to make up for that this week. I usually spend most of August and September fish in and around Charlotte Harbor for tarpon and redfish. Two years ago the fishing was fantastic but last year due to a lack of fresh water flow from the Peace and Myakka Rivers the tarpon didn’t do much. This year has been “spotty” up until now because of a tropical storm and high winds associated with a front. That was until this past week when the tarpon “exploded”

I’m not going to tell you about redfish that are starting to school up on the flats or the snook that are spawning in the passes north of Sanibel. Let’s talk tarpon. The tarpon were thick in Charlotte Harbor this week. When I say thick I mean by the hundreds. Usually you see tarpon break the surface of the water by rolling but rarely do you see them actively crashing bait on the surface. The only thing that can describe the action that we encountered this week was “The Whale Thing” If you have ever seen the Discovery Channel footage of the giant whales off Alaska jumping completely out of the water then you know what it looks like. That scene was half of the excitement the hooking of these tarpon was the other half. We fought 11 tarpon in the 150-pound class and had another 14 strike this past weekend and some of the other guides found them on Friday as well. I expect these fish to be around until Labor Day or a few weeks after that. As long as we get calm winds and no tropical storms I can’t see the tarpon fishing dropping off much.

As for bait, it didn’t matter much. We hooked tarpon on pinfish, silver perch, grunts, herring, croaker and sand trout. We also had one fish attack a bomber long A. But, there was a little too much floating grass for the plugs.

As for the forecast, it’s up in the air. I believe that the tarpon fishing will be good though the middle of next month when they will start to show up off the 10,000 Islands again. If another big weather system moves in on us then all bets are off and it may take a while to locate them again.

Good Luck!

Capt. Scott Hughes

Blackwater Charters

863-946-9171

www.blackwatercharters.com [email protected]

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