Speckled trout and snook best bets in Sarasota.
Capt. Jim Klopfer
April 7, 2012
Sarasota - Saltwater Fishing Report
Trout fishing has been outstanding this week! Most of the deep flats are holding slot sized and larger fish. Potholes and bars in shallow water are yielding trout over 5 pounds. Snook fishing has been good; several clients caught their first ever snook this week. Spanish mackerel are around, but not in big numbers. Decent sized jack crevelle are being caught along side the snook.
Joe McGurrin from Stevensville, MD and his buddy Stan Ross from Virginia Beach, VA caught speckled trout and ladyfish on jigs at the Marina Jack flat first thing in the morning. The bite slowed, so I netted up some pilchards and we had steady action on the edge of a flat, landing silver trout to 16', speckled trout to 17", and ladyfish. We ran down to Robert's Bay and caught a half dozen 4 pound jacks, 3 snook to 28", and a nice trout under docks.
Longboat Key resident Jim Mitchell, son Todd Bruce, and grand daughter Ruby (8) Bruce caught trout, mackerel, and ladyfish on Monday morning. We dropped Ruby off and finished up with Todd catching his first snook, a nice 28" fish. Jim and Todd also landed jacks and a nice 15" mangrove snapper. In the afternoon Steve Tally and his son Nick from Atlanta caught a bunch of trout to 18", 5 Spanish mackerel, a 16" flounder and ladyfish on pilchards.
Eric Prime from Bargersville, IN took his kids Alec (12) and Alden (17) out on Tuesday morning. Action was steady, they landed several macks, 4 slot trout, and 3 trout right at 20" that we released (gotta let those big girls go!!) In the afternoon Osprey, FL caught her first ever snook, along with several nice trout. Her guests caught trout, mackerel, ladyfish, a nice bluefish, and a 6 pound jack crevelle.
Tim Carrig from Elm Grove, WI and his sons Joe (8), Kevin (10) and Tim (12) experienced non-stop action on trout, ladyfish, mackerel, and jacks using live shrimp. They landed over 75 fish. With 45 minutes to go, we ran out of shrimp ( I started with 12 dozen! ) so with 30 minutes left, I did a quick bait netting, putting 30 pilchards in the well. The result was 2 snook landed by Kevin, he was inches from a "Slam" as a red shook loose right at the boat. We did land a red and missed several other snook.
Jeff O'Daniel from IN took out a friend on Thursday. A stiff west wind and dirty water near the passes made catching bait difficult. We ended up focusing on speckled trout on the flats off of Longboat Key and did quite well tossing D.O.A. shad tail baits and Gulp! Shrimp.
Friday it blew 20+, so no fishing. We did get out on Saturday. John Sznewajs and his boys Lukas (12) and Peter (9) from Birmingham, MI caught silver trout, speckled trout, ladyfish, a Spanish mackerel, and a blacktip shark. Fishing was a little tough, coming off the front and dealing with strong N.E. winds.
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