Sarasota fishing report Capt Jim klopfer 12/28/2014
Capt. Jim Klopfer
December 28, 2014
Sarasota - Saltwater Fishing Report
Fishing was very good this week on the deep grass flats near Big Pass and New Pass, with the Middlegrounds being the top spot. Spanish mackerel, bluefish, jacks, speckled trout, and loads of ladyfish hit Bass Assassin jigs, Rapala X-Raps, Clouser Minnow flies, and live shrimp. There are also a lot of fish including gag grouper, mangrove snapper, and sheepshead in the structure along the north side of Siesta Key. The Myakka River continues to produce trophy snook by clients casting Rapala plugs.
I started my week off with a Myakka River charter on Monday with Randy Cornell from Chattanooga, TN. Using a #10 gold Rapala X-Rap, randy caught several small snook and then a real trophy. His lure was only a couple of feet away from the boat when a BIG snook inhaled it! The fight was on and it eventually was landed, a nice, fat 35" snook!
Ondrej Lisy, coincidently also from Chattanooga, took his boys Bernard (12) and Andrew (16) out on a breezy Tuesday. They caught around 50 fish, mostly ladyfish but bluefish and Spanish mackerel, too, on chartreuse Bass assassin jigs at the Radio Tower and Middlegrounds.
Pete Torcicollo from New Jersey and his son Ryan were greeted with blustery winds on Wednesday morning. But, we decided to give it a try. We started at the Radio Tower, hooking a couple of ladyfish, but it was too windy with a big swell. We spent the rest of the morning on the west side of the bay just north of New Pass. Ryan is an accomplished fly angler from Utah and did very well considering the conditions, catching ladyfish, a couple of speckled trout to 16", and a nice Spanish mackerel using green/white and charteuse/white Clousers of a full sinking line. Pete caught a couple of fish on fly but chipped in with a flounder, a couple of jacks, a mackerel, and a bunch of ladyfish using Bass Assassin jigs It was blowing a solid 25 knots when we decided to call it a morning, a good trip under tough conditions with twp excellent anglers!
I took off Christmas and ran two trips on Friday. In the morning Ken Clark treated his son and a couple of in-laws to a charter. Action was steady on ladyfish with Spanish mackerel and bluefish mixed in. Most of the ladyfish and bluefish hit Bass Assassin jigs while trolled Rapala X-Raps fooled most of the mackerel. The Middlegrounds was the best spot. In the afternoon Pete and Ryan Torcicollo went out with me again. They wanted more challenging fish this time, so i ran up in Phillippi Creek in search of big jacks and snook. They landed a half dozen snook and a jack on Clousers, though none of them were very large.
I finished my week up with a pair of couple from Canada; Erica and Ben Heaslip and their friends. They caught a bunch of ladyfish at Marker # 5 and then caught grouper, sheepshead, and snapper in Big Pass using live shrimp.
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