A strong Christmas cold front may put a little chill on prospects for Southwest Florida’s cold-natured native species. A small craft advisory is slated through Saturday morning, but the silver lining to those winds may be ill effects on red tide concentrations in Lee and Collier counties. (See the red tide map in this week’s gallery).
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The fish have been biting offshore, inshore, and inland, but Christmas busyness has had anglers doing lots of other things.
ESTERO BAY: Steve, Terri, and Jack O’Keefe used live shrimp to catch seven sheepshead to 13 inches and release three short mangrove snapper Tuesday on their inshore Fishbuster Charter in southern Estero Bay with Capt. Dave Hanson.
Up at the bay’s other end, also on Tuesday, Don Fiscella freelined shrimp around the Starvation Keys to catch more than 20 spotted seatrout on his Get Hooked trip. Capt. Matt DeAngelis also reports shrimp also have produced pompano, sheepshead, and redfish this week around Mound Key.
SANIBEL: Norm Zeigler’s Fly, Bait & Tackle Shop on Periwinkle Way reports good fishing for trout from 15 t0 20 inches on the San Carlos Bay flats off the causeway toll booths. In Tarpon Bay the trout have been mixed with redfish and snook, and Blind Pass has been producing trout and sheepshead, although red-tide-killed mullet also have washed up in the pass. Red tide also seems to have slowed the bite on baby tarpon in the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, but there still lots of little poons rolling along Wildlife Drive (closed Fridays).
PINE ISLAND SOUND: St. James City Captain George “Artificials Only” Grosselfinger reports a halcyon day on snook last Saturday along shorelines in the southeastern sound. He caught 13, plus a trout, with five of the linesides measuring 30 to 36 inches. The biggest snook of the day blasted a topwater plug only 15 feet from his boat, and it eventually came unhooked, although he caught it on his Go-Pro camera.
Lehr’s Economy Tackle pro-staffer Leo Marino reports Capt. Shane Kelly has been fishing with shrimp threaded on baitholder hooks around docks inside Redfish and Captiva passes, where he’s been catching small to low-slot-size redfish and sheepshead. Across the sound south of Demere Key the shrimp have been drifted across the flats under corks and have been producing nice size trout.
CHARLOTTE HARBOR: King Fisher bay boat guides report trout in the upper harbor have transitioned from the flats to more stable water temperatures in eight- to 10-foot depths in the mouth of the Peace River. They also have been catching sheepshead, small snapper and a few Spanish mackerel on shrimp fished at the Charlotte Harbor Reef south of Mangrove Point. Creek mouths along upper east side shorelines also have been producing small to low-slot redfish.
OFFSHORE: Tuesday and Wednesday offshore trips with King Fisher Capt. John Baines were good for red grouper and lane snapper, plus a shot of vermilion snapper and a six-foot shark released Tuesday by the Smart party of six, from Wisconsin. Both trips were west-southwest of Boca Grande Pass in depths from 65 to 70 feet.
FRESHWATER
LAKE TRAFFORD: Lake Trafford Marina owner Ski Olesky reports he’s never seen the crappie bite so erratic in all his decades on the Immokalee lake. Sometimes the specks are biting very well, mostly in early morning or evening hours and at night, and sometimes they’re not. In general the fishing has been good from the pier and shorelines of Ann Olesky Park, and boaters report the crappie have begun moving into the shoreline vegetation where they spawn. Minnows have been outfishing jigs of late.
LAKE OKEECHOBEE: Roland Martin’s Marina & Resort manager Ramon Iglesias reports “The fishing on Lake Okeechobee is on FIRE” for bass and crappie. Panfish specialists among the lake’s snowbirds are catching limits of 10-inch-minimum specks, and releasing many more, with minnows or jigs producing about evenly.
Tennesseans Greg and Matt Whitaker used live shiners Tuesday in the South Bay area to catch more than 50 bass to five pounds with Capt. Chad Van Slyke, who targeted “hard edges” of surface vegetation stacked tight by the wind. The bite on artificials has been good all around the west side of the lake, from Clewiston’s West Wall north to Little Grassy, off the mouth of the Kissimmee River. Start with shad-imitating baits along outside grass lines, and move back into eelgrass areas or punch creature baits through floating mats as the sun gets high.
PIC OF THE WEEK
You can’t mask Terri O’Keefe’s smile when she’s catching feisty sheepshead.
FISH TIP
Florida’s bass are notoriously cold-natured and can be hard to turn on right after a strong front. Adding insult to injury is their distaste for the intense ultraviolet rays beaming through clear, post-frontal skies. Even so, it’s hard for big bass to turn down an easily slurped wild shiner, the go-to bait for big spawning she bass. And it’s not hard to find them if you look for the deep shade cast by floating mats of vegetation like the hyacinths over Matt Whitaker’s left shoulder. No shiners? Punch soft plastic creatures through the mats with heavy tungsten weights.
HOT SPOTS
No. 1: Charlotte Harbor Reef for sheepshead and more.
No. 2: Offshore for red grouper and lane snapper (after the wind dies a bit).
No. 3: Docks inside northern passes for sheepshead and redfish.
No. 4: Big snook along southeastern shorelines.
No. 5: Trout on the toll booth flats.
No. 6: Starvation Key flats for trout and more.
No. 7: Lake Trafford for crappie.
LAKE OKEECHOBEE
No. 1: Mouth of the Kissimmee River for crappie.
No. 2: Little Grassy to the West Wall for bass.
No. 3: Monkey Box for crappie.
No. 4: Grassy Island for bass.
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