Marco Island, Ft. Myers & Boca Grande

Capt. Scott Hughes
June 24, 2005
Fort Myers - Saltwater Fishing Report

It's been a fantastic tarpon season!

The hot spot the entire month of June was Boca Grande Pass. If the tarpon wern't in the pass itself then they wern't far away. Most days consisted of jigs the pass in the morning and running the beaches and offshore in the afternoon sight fishing with live crabs or thread herring. I set a personal record this year by only fishing one day in June without hooking at least one tarpon. That day was June 4th and although we didn't catch a tarpon we had plenty of chances fishing tarpon pods on the beach. They just didn't want to eat that day. In addition to a numbers there was the quality is getting better as well. Not that the quality was bad in the first place. Our tarpon average around 100 pounds or so. This year a number of tarpon over 200 pounds have been caught and a tournament record 216 pounder was caught and released the first week of June. Our largest this year so far has been around 180 pounds. We also hooked one well over 200 pounds but it chewed though the 80-pound leader in just 7 minutes.

Most of the tarpon have spawned by now and they are leaving the pass and moving into the backcountry and harbor to start feeding up for their migration this fall. This is when some of the best tarpon fishing of the year occures. Seven of my top ten person best days have come after July 1st. Expect the tarpon to hang around Charlotte Harbor and Pine Island Sound until around Labor Day and then start moving south.

Snook fishing has been solid as well. We are averaging over 30 snook per morning using live sardines. Most of my fishing has been along the beaches and in the passes. When the seas have been to choppy to beach fishing i've been moving up into Charlotte Harbor and fishing blown down mangroves along points with good current.

Trout and redfish have been fairly slow as compared to last winter and spring. You can find a few reds around the mangroves in Pine Island Sound and plenty of smaller trout along the grass beds of the sound and harbor.

Inshore snapper fishing is picking up with good sized mangrove snapper hitting small scaled sardines while snook fishing in Charlotte Harbor.

Good Luck!

Capt. Scott Hughes

Blackwater Charters

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