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Report for Naples, Marco Island and the Ten Thousand Islands
Capt. Matt Hoover
April 9, 2002
Marco Island - Saltwater Fishing Report
The Big Three
All the players have stepped into the ring. Snook, redfish and tarpon have been the main attraction. This past week dished out some excellent fishing. The wind has been a major deterrent but veteran anglers have become accustomed to dealing with it.
Tarpon have been showing up strong offshore and in the backcountry of Marco and the Ten Thousand Islands. For guides such as myself, tarpon are all I have been fishing for. Guides reported many hookups this past week. It is no wonder because they are here en masse. Live bait, cut bait and flies are the methods of choice that seem to be working the best. Anglers Chuck and Katie Ruoff boated one hundred and twenty pound bookend tarpon using cutbait with me on an afternoon trip this past week. Angler Blaise Wick broke the leader after a monster took his fly early in the morning on Friday. After the tide flooded, we decided to go to conventional methods. After an epic battle, Blaise subdued a tarpon that I estimated at about one hundred and twenty five pounds. These stories are being repeated from Naples to Everglades National Park.
Snook and Redfish of all sizes are out of hiding. Live bait is available but you really have to hunt for it. Soft plastic baits can be just as deadly but you have to be extremely accurate with them. Throwing artificial lures is an art. Anglers that are very skilled can plant a lure deep in the nooks and crannies of the mangroves. If you practice, you can skip soft plastics and lures deep into cover. It is casts like these that produce the winning strikes.
Anglers have been picking up trout in the usual haunts. When the wind isn’t blowing, trout fishing has been good over the grass of Cape Romano. People have been catching an occasional redfish or snook while they are fishing for trout off the Cape. Grass patches in front of the islands are still producing.
If the wind would tame down, the schools of bait will have a chance to come inshore. That is when you will go “catching” instead of fishing. The forecast shows that another front will plague us this weekend. There may be some smooth sailing by the beginning of the week. Early Spring is famous for heavy winds. In a few short weeks we should be able to enjoy light breezes and spectacular fishing. I’ll see you on the water.
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