Mother Nature fights back
Capt. Gary Clark
January 19, 2010
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report
Fishing report for the week ending 1/17/2010 With the coldest temperatures for an extended period of time that I have seen in a while the one day I got out on a charter left a little to be desired. On friday with warmer air temps but icy water we were able to get sheepshead and ladyfish to bite but you could tell they just did not have there heart in it. The other days I spent on the water this week just doing observations of the cold snap, yes we did suffer a substantial snook kill on Pine Island and Sanibel. Bokelia, St James city,Pine Land and Dinkins Biou all had good numbers of mostly bigger fish die. Snook were by far the main fish hit the hardest with ladyfish, pompano, catfish, rays and even a few sharks effected. As a result FWC has put in place a snook closer until Aug.31ST when it will be avaluated again. I would recommend everyone going to www.myfwc.com for information and updates on the situation. I and many other guides I have talked to are in favor of this closer and I recommend that everyone exersize as much catch and release as possible. These fish will come back they always have before. In my thirty years living here I have seen this happen several times, the hardest hit areas are always shallow canals and bays less than 6ft deep. The Cape Coral and river mouth areas had some dead fish but a lot surrived by getting into the 20 ft canals. I had a chance to go into Sanibel marina and observed some dead snook mostly larger ones, but lots of fish that servived and were finding warm sunny areas to recover. Some good news is there have been very few trout and I have not seen a dead redfish. There are some desturbing reports out there and I would take them with a grain of salt, our fishery is fine and will rebound given the chance. In the next few days we will be fishing for sheepshead and small redfish both of which do fine in the cold, the trout, pompano and other fish will get better as our water warms back up. So get out and fish!
For charter information or to book a charter contact.
Capt. Gary Clark
Ph. 239-542-9315
[email protected]
www.ultimatecharters.com
Pine Island Sound Fishing Forecast:
Warmer weather is on the way
Target Species:
Redfish Seatrout Sheepshead
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