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Report for Naples, Marco Island and the Ten Thousand Islands
Capt. Matt Hoover
June 8, 2003
Marco Island - Saltwater Fishing Report
Wicked Winds From The West
Winds from the south to southwest have kept our ears pinned back for the last three weeks. Finding decent live bait has been next to impossible. We have managed to scrap up some medium sized threadfin herring from time to time. They don’t live long in the live well but they are candy to snook and redfish. That doesn’t mean that fishing has been poor. We have had to get a little more creative. Many of us have been packing some shrimp for our days on the water as backup.
There is no shortage of mangrove snapper in the Marco and Ten Thousand Islands areas. Many of them are up to fourteen inches in length. I forgot how tasty they can be. We have been catching them on shrimp. I will fish fallen trees and oyster bars with shrimp, lures and jigs in hopes of catching a snook or a redfish. Then I will fish it again with a rod that is rigged with a number two hook with shrimp or just a piece of shrimp. The snapper will make short work of the offering. The small hook will prove fatal to the snappers’ greed. If you are fishing fallen trees, don’t under estimate a snappers’ strength. They are tough out of the gate and will cut you off just as quickly as a snook.
We have been catching plenty of snook of all sizes. We have been using all methods at our disposal. I will have my anglers free line live shrimp in swift current along the bushes. Snook don’t have time to think. They just attack. Other spots I will have my anglers throw Hybrid fish bodies on a quarter ounce jigs. In the right hands, they have been deadly and have been producing snook over thirty inches. If the beach has been calm, we have been able to net some medium sized threadfin herring. They are delicate but we fish them the same way you would fish scaled sardines.
Small to medium sized tarpon have been a bonus these past few weeks. You will find them rolling early in the morning in the most unlikely spots. We have getting hookups with shrimp, threads and lures of all kinds. These fish are ranging from eight to sixty pounds. They have not been very fussy about what they will eat.
Redfish are still spotty. I have had days where we will catch as many as six. Then I won’t see red for a few days. We have been catching them where you might expect to catch a snook.
Trout have been plentiful over the grass flats of Cape Romano when the weather permits. Most of them have been keeper size. Jigs and shrimp or live shrimp will always produce a fine catch of trout.
Soon the bait should return to the beaches and coves. If we could just return to a normal weather pattern with the winds out of the east, all hell will break loose. Success for now relies on persistence and determination. That is something that most die hards have plenty of. I’ll see you on the water.
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