Boca Grande, Fl.
22 April 2006

 

Fishing is very good.  Not just fishing but catching.  There are so many mackerel and bonito and kings running around  the pass, it's hard to choose where to cast.  Bluefish are striking bait all over the harbor and there is so much bait you could almost walk across the pass on it.  So.... just another ho-hum day in paradise.

 

What is making me so happy are the tarpon.  I fished with Norm Worthington for baby tarpon in the canals of Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte last week and found nothing.  I was devastated.  Then the weather turned very warm, very quickly.  The tarpon started to show up in the upper harbor and in Pine Island Sound.  A few fish showed on the north side of the harbor this week for the second time this year. 

 

The reports I'm hearing are "lots of fish" and " they are eating when you get on them".  Those are good signs and a harbinger of a super season.  If you are a serious angler you should be getting ready as we speak. 

 

Let's talk snook and redfish.  Both are abundant.  Both are eating.  Both are migrating.  Both are great fun.  Because we have already changed to summer weather the fishing is best early and late.  I suggest you fish the morning rising tide from about 5:00 am to about 9:00 am and then call it a day, or better yet, go mackerel fishing.  Then return to snook and reds in the evening.  The really eat a lot on the evening outgoing tide.

 

Dave Bische and a buddy fished with me on Thursday and took several snook and redfish on plastics and spoons.  These are a couple of good anglers who need to do it again.  Jesse Jones and Steve Myers fished the harbor on Monday and caught bluefish, ladyfish and jacks early on  fly and jigs.  In the evening they caught redfish and snook along the mangroves where the tide was moving.  A great day on the water.

 

Jesse Jones and son Casey brought young Phillip out for action off Longboat Key last week.  I believe Phillip out fished his dad and grandpa easily. 

 

Jim Leiner and son-in-law Anthony brought Anthony's son Peter fishing with me off Venice Inlet on Wednesday.  We arrived to find thousands of birds feeding over busting fish as far as you could see.  Action was good until about 10:00 am and then died off.  We then fished in the ICW north of Blackburn Bridge but the fishing was pretty slow there.

 

The next week is the beginning of serious tarpon fishing.  You can still fish for snook and redfish, or anything else, but when the tarpon come now they eat the flies very well.  So gear up your 12 wt. and let's go fishing.

 

Fish Hard,
Pete

 

 

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