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Char Mercer and Hannah Lane had a big time in Wiggins Pass catching mangrove snapper, including some keepers, Sunday with Char’s husband, Rick. -
This 27-inch mutton was one of many Will Kures and his family caught on cut thread herrings, 25 miles off Naples on the All In with Capt. Jim Rinckey. -
All In Capt. Kees Van Der Aa’s African pompano rounded out the box, which also included four snapper species and two big porgies, all delicious. -
This snook was one of 24 Capt. George Grosselfinger caught last Friday in the Flamingo Homesites Canal. -
This battered Bomber lure from the 1980s, striped to resemble pinfish and rehung with a single tailhook, was the bait Capt. Grosselfinger used to release two dozen snook. -
Daidy Capo’s 20-inch whopper was the best of a good day for sheepshead in Matlacha Pass with his son, Daniel, and wife Daiana Caliman. -
David DeLeon’s snook couldn’t resist the yellow jig with a white plastic tail he was throwing just after sunset under docks in Gordon Pass. -
Capt. Alex Moran’s redfish was one of many found in Charlotte Harbor creeks, with his pal, Wildfly Charters Capt. Gregg McKee on the pushpole. -
Karen Theiss was trying out Fish Bites bait strips from her dock in Hurricane Bay when she caught this big sand bream (striped mojarra). -
The latest red tide map for Lee County showed the first low to high concentrations of the noxious algae measured so far this fall. -
Hoosier youth Henry Hamilton’s first fish on fly, a spotted sunfish, might have threatened the state record of 0 .83 pounds, had it not been released. Photo courtesy Capt. Ralph Allen.
More beautiful weather this weekend should bring more beautiful catches, particularly from offshore anglers.
Lee County offshore anglers reported dandy blackfin tuna and whopper mangrove snapper, and farther south, off Naples, dandy mutton snapper, and an African pompano hit the decks.
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Cooling waters have put snook on fire this week, and the winter run of sheepshead continued to gain steam.
Freshwater fishing also has been great in lakes Okeechobee and Trafford.
The fly in the ointment is this week’s red tide report from the Fish and Wildlife Research Center that notes 22 sites in Lee County with background to high concentrations of the noxious algae. Check out the map in this week’s photo gallery.
OFFSHORE: A&B Charters Capt. Jim Rinckey reports a great winter shaping up for snapper fishing off Naples, with muttons joining mangs, lanes, and vermilions in snapper slams as close in as 25 miles west of Gordon Pass. Here’s Capt. Rinckey showing off a 27-inch mutton caught by Will Kures, from Chippewa Falls, Wisc.
Get Hooked Charter Capt. Matt DeAngelis took the week off, but he reports most of the other captains out of Fish Tale Marina scored with lots of cobia on wrecks off Clam and Wiggins passes in Collier County.
Brandon and Bobbi Jean Wilt, Jeremy Rounding, and Andrew Boyce took the Wilts’ 21-foot flats skiff 20 miles out of Captiva Pass where they encountered Bonita (little tunny) “everywhere.” Brandon began chumming heavily with live scaled sardines and in addition to the false albacore, they caught a brace of 20- and 25-pound blackfin tuna. More chumming as night fell fired up the snapper on the bottom, and 26 mangs to 24 inches ended up in the cooler. “We left the fish biting,” Wilt reported.
King Fisher Capt. John Baines took two anglers to 70 feet of water west-southwest of Boca Grande Pass last Thursday, where they each brought in a keeper red grouper and rounded out the box with 20 lane snapper.
COLLIER: David DeLeon sent in this pic of a snook he lured from a Gordon Pass dock with a yellow jig head and plastic tail combo, just after sundown.
Rick Mercer sent in a shot of his wife, Char, and Hannah Lanes with one of many mangrove snapper, including several keepers they caught Saturday on live shrimp in Wiggins Pass.
HURRICANE BAY: Karen Theiss sent in a shot of the latest notch on her rod, a whopper sand bream (striped mojarra) she caught while trying out Fish Bites bait-impregnated cloth strips she got from Cattle Dock Bait Co. in Punta Rassa.
SANIBEL: Norm Zeigler’s Fly, Bait & Tackle on Periwinkle Way reports “sheepshead are everywhere,” to the point that some are being taken by blind casting red-and-black Clouser Minnow and Tangerine Tidbit flies to bayside docks. Norm Zeigler also reports an influx of baby tarpon along Wildlife Drive (closed Fridays) in the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, in numbers he’s seen only twice in his 26 years on the island. Snook reports have been slim, but lots of trout have been biting along the Sanibel Causeway islands, in Tarpon Bay and in Blind Pass.
PINE ISLAND: Daiana Caliman reports a “sheepshead day” Sunday in Matlacha Pass near St. James City, where she, husband Daidy Capo and stepson Daniel all scored with keepers to 20 inches. They were fishing live shrimp on quarter-ounce jig heads.
St. James City Capt. George “Artificials Only” Grosselfinger reports big snook have been biting so well, and fighting so hard he’s had to take a few days off this week to rest a sore wrist. Last Friday in the Flamingo Homesites Canal he caught 24, with five from 30 to 34 inches, casting an old Bomber lipped plug repainted to resemble pinfish, and rehung with a single swinger tailhook.
CHARLOTTE HARBOR: Wildfly Charters Capt. Gregg McKee reports gorgeous but super spooky redfish “crawling all over the place in creeks” along the harbor’s lower east side, north to Burnt Store Marina. His pal, Spirit Fly Charters Capt. Alex Moran finally managed to get one to eat a black deer hair slider, two hours into an incoming tide. The creeks also were full of glass minnows (bay anchovies), snook, and sheepshead.
King Fisher bay boat charters out of Fishermen’s Village in Punta Gorda report sheepshead numbers are on the rise at the Charlotte Harbor Reef, as well as in some east side creeks where small snapper often are first to a shrimp. A subslot snook and two subslot cobia also were released at the reef this week, and trout fishing was good on east side flats, at least until Wednesday morning’s cold snap.
FRESHWATER
PUNTA GORDA: Capt. Ralph Allen was giving fly casting lessons to Henry Hamilton from Indiana when he caught this whopper stumpknocker (spotted sunfish) in a private pond. Two other youngsters also scored their first fish on fly, a Mayan cichlid, and a bluegill.
LAKE TRAFFORD: Evan Falwell, 6, caught a 5-pound bass while drifting a jig in the Immokalee lake’s central depths with his grandad, Grundy. They have been docking regularly with their limits of crappie, which also have been biting at the Ann Olesky Park Pier in late afternoon and at night, on both minnows and jigs according to Lake Trafford Marina.
LAKE OKEECHOBEE: Roland Martin’s Marina and Resort reports crappie have been equally well on light-colored jigs and minnows fished under pennywort and hyacinths in four- to five-foot depths along the West Wall and in Uncle Joe’s (Mayaca) Cut. Clewiston angler George Lebo, Jr. reports there have been lots of specks, relative to this early in the crappie run.
The team of Roger Crafton and John Ochs won $30,000 in the Roland Martin Marine Center Series 2020 Championship presented by HUK. They used the tried and true Lake O formula of punching critter baits through floating mats with 3/4- to 1-1/2-ounce tungsten weights to weigh in 53-1/2 pounds. More than half of the 135 teams weighed their limits of 10 bass over the two day event.
PIC OF THE WEEK
Capt. Alex Moran’s redfish was one of many found in Charlotte Harbor creeks, with his pal, Wildfly Charters Capt. Gregg McKee on the pushpole.
FISH TIP
The calm afternoon was perfect for Brandon and Bobbi Jean Wilt, Jeremy Rounding and Andrew Boyce to take the Wilts’ flats skiff 20 miles off Captiva Pass, where they ran into schools of little tunny “everywhere.” Happily, they had a livewell full of scaled sardines with which Brandon began chumming heavily, to keep the “bonita” close to the boat. And not only did they catch the little tunnies, they also decked two big blackfin tuna attracted to the struggling baitfish. What’s more, as night fell the big mangrove snapper below found the chummers, and bit until the cooler held 26 whoppers to 24 inches. Which is to say, as many experienced anglers will affirm, you can’t go offshore with too many live baits in the well.
HOT SPOTS
No. 1: Charlotte Harbor Reef for sheepshead.
No. 2: East side creeks for redfish and more.
No. 3: Eastern Pine Island Sound for big snook.
No. 4: Ding Darling for baby tarpon.
No. 5: Matlacha Pass for sheepshead.
No. 6: Offshore for snappers, maybe a tuna.
No. 7: Lake Trafford for crappie.
LAKE OKEECHOBEE
No. 1: Uncle Joe’s for crappie.
No. 2: West Wall for crappie.
No. 3: Big bass under floating mats, all around the lake.
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