Marco Island, Ft. Myers & Boca Grande

Capt. Scott Hughes
November 19, 2001
Fort Myers - Saltwater Fishing Report

To Cold, To Dirty, To Small

I forgot to write the report for this week so I’m going to report about some flyfishing that I have been doing in the 10,000 Islands. Business has been slow so I have been trying to get out and explore some areas. My charters will be getting into full swing next week with the holiday.

Capt. Greg Bond and I decided get together and do some flyfishing. We departed out of Chokoluskee and ran down the Lopez River and started throwing deceiver and clouser patterns in some of the bays off the Houston and Chattum Rivers. We picked up a small snook and had a few strikes and then moved down river toward the outside. We spotted a few tarpon rolling and stopped to blind cast in the area. I had a big fish follow a gurgler and then take the fly with a tremendous strike. I set the hook and cleared the line expecting a large tarpon to explode form the water. To my surprise a large jack crevelle had taken the fly. After about 15 minutes we landed a 16-pound jack. The fish put up and excellent fight on my new 9 wt and pulled out about 60 yard of backing on the first run. The rest of the day consisted of blind casting some oyster bars around Duck Rock and points around Sweetwater Bay. I guess we landed 5 or 6 ladyfish on bendbacks and gurglers. I also raised a nice snook but I but I guess that he was blind because he completely missed the floater that I was casting.

I did get two charters in for the weekend and fishing was still fairly slow with water still below 70 degrees. Frank Ono and I got together to do try some flyfishing and look for tarpon. We planned to get some live bait and catch some snook and redfish but the 15-20 knot winds had made the water to muddy to find any. Without any live sardines we used jigs tipped with shrimp and flies the rest of the day. Frank caught about half a dozen ladyfish on fly and another dozen on jigs. Little jacks were everywhere and we caught them in the passes, on the flats and in the backcountry. We also caught two nice mangrove snapper and an 18-inch trout.

The next day I fished Steve Copulis and his dad Bob. They were concerned about the slow report from the day before and about the bait situation. We met at 9:00 am because the low tide in the morning wasn’t producing much. The winds had calmed down quite a bit and the water was clearing. I caught plenty of small scaled sardines at the mouth of Marco River. They were a little smaller than I like but under the circumstances I wasn’t complaining. We headed south to look for cleaner water and caught ladyfish and small jacks on jigs and the livies at every stop. I found much cleaner water south of Whitehorse Key and the fishing was a little better also. Bob caught a nice snook and a trout near Dismal Key pass and Steve got broke off in the trees by a snook in the same area. We also picked up a couple more snook near Round Key and broke off another on Dickman's Point.

The most interesting thing that I saw was tarpon. Frank and I found two “laid up” tarpon in one of the little back bays and the next day I saw one roll near the same area that was pushing the 100-pound mark. Frank threw a fly on the smaller tarpon on the first day but we didn’t get any takers. The next day we had bait but couldn’t find the fish to sight-cast to. I’m guessing that if I can catch some nice big sardines I can “still” fish and score on a tarpon or two. All in all, the fishing has been on the slow side for more than a week now. The water is a little cold, it’s a little muddy and the bait has been on the small side. Put all that together and fishing can be tough. Maybe next week the winds will calm down a little and the water will warm up. If that happens the fishing could heat back up also.

Good Luck!

Capt. Scott Hughes

Blackwater Charters

863-946-9171

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