“This weather blows” has been more than a figure of speech of late. Some folks are hating it.
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Then again, some anglers are finding big piles of snook, trout, and even Florida’s notoriously cold-shy bass bunched up in warm water refuges.
MARCO: Luis Chavez used a big live shrimp to tempt this 40-inch snook he caught behind Three Island Cove, while Gheenoeing with David De Leon. That’s a whopping four inches larger than the minimum qualifying length for the Saltwater Reel Big Fish recognition program sponsored by the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
NAPLES: Rick and Char Mercer also were using shrimp when they caught and released several snook Sunday near Wiggins Pass.
ESTERO BAY: Rick Thibault and Brandon Benning each got a sheepshead for dinner, and they had fun in the process with three short sheepies, a 22-inch redfish, and a 19-inch trout on their inshore Fishbuster Charter Friday in south bay backwaters.
Get Hooked Charter Capt. Matt DeAngelis reports sheepshead biting in Estero Bay’s passes, where Marylander John Detamosso caught four Saturday in Big Carlos, and Ohioan Mark Koster limited with eight caught Monday in Big Hickory. Live shrimp on jig heads also have produced sheepshead and trout for clients near Starvation Flats and Black Key.
SAN CARLOS BAY: Last Thursday, right after last week’s front came through, captains Rob and Pete Modys entertained old friends from Minnesota, Laura Utke and Brenda Hart, by fishing the lee along the north shore of San Carlos Bay. “I’ve never seen that many seatrout,” reported Rob, author of the newly released “What I Know About Fishing Southwest Florida,” (Amazon $29.95). “We must have caught a hundred of ’em.” They also caught mangrove snapper and lots of ladyfish and crevalle jacks with live and New Penny Gulp! Shrimp on jig heads under corks.
SANIBEL: Norm Zeigler’s Fly, Bait & Tackle Shop on Periwinkle Way reports Sanibel’s snook appetites have gone south with the mercury, but seatrout remain cooperative up and down the island’s San Carlos Bay and Pine Island Sound shorelines. Sheepshead also have been plentiful around structure, but redfish have been a hit-or-miss proposition.
PINE ISLAND: St. James City Capt. George Grosselfinger reports snook have moved en masse into the island’s canals, where they’re finding slightly warmer waters. He used Rapala X-Rap plugs but had better luck with green or white paddletail jigs, fished fast, to pull 23 snook, including three over 30 inches, out of local docks on Wednesday.
Over on the other side of the island, Wildfly Charters Capt. Gregg McKee was seeing big redfish while poling the chillier flats near the Matlacha Pass powerlines. “There were lots of snook mixed in with them and all had lockjaw, or at least didn’t want to hit flies. Not much bait down there either. This weather stinks.”
CHARLOTTE HARBOR: The four Winkelmans from St. Paul, Minn. found Wednesday’s cold weather agreeable with the sheepshead along the harbor’s northeastern shorelines. King Fisher Capt. Matt Lee guided them to a dozen keepers, plus a pompano. King Fisher captains also have been doing well targeting undersize and low-slot redfish with live shrimp in the I-75 area of the Peace River.
OFFSHORE: John, Holly, and Cruz Lischer used squid to box 20 of the 30 white grunts they caught, in addition to four undersize red grouper. They were fishing 19 miles west of New Pass in Capt. Dave Hanson’s favorite snapper holes, but the mangs were a no-go Saturday morning.
Keeper size red grouper were the no-go for Saturday’s offshore King Fisher trip to depths around 65 feet out of Boca Grande Pass, but they released plenty of shorts, and brought home a nice box of lane snapper, plus a mix of vermilions, porgies and grunts.
FRESHWATER
CAPE CORAL (MAYBE): Alissa Forrest sent in this shot of her five-year-old, Jordan Forrest-Levitt, with a 10-pound tarpon he caught “by himself with some help from his dad, David.” He was fishing off “10th St. Northwest in the Estates.”
LAKE TRAFFORD: Winds as high as 40 mph toppled trees and kept pretty much everyone off the Immokalee lake since last Thursday, the last time any decent catches of crappie were made, according to Lake Trafford Marina & Campground.
LAKE OKEECHOBEE: Illinois angler John Schuessler spurned the wild shiners, and put 20 bass to 4 pounds in the boat casting fake baits with Capt. George Mro of Roland Martin’s Marina & Resort in Clewiston. They fished the North Shore area between the Harney Pond Canal and Dyess’s Ditch, starting with a pumpkin/blue Gambler stick worm that produced early. The guide then found a “fast and furious” schooling bass bite by targeting scattered cattail clumps and eelgrass in depths of three to five feet, where a silver Zara Spook did the damage.
Brad Lytle of Roland Martin’s Marine Center in Clewiston reports the crappie bite “is so hot that it’s taking no time to catch your limits.” On the Big O, that’s 25 speckled perch of at least 10 inches. The specks have been in hyacinth mats and holes in the grass, where minnows or white, chartreuse or pink jigs have been effective on the West Wall, in Uncle Joe’s (Mayaca) Cut, and on the north end of the lake.
PIC OF THE WEEK
Capt. George Grosselfinger’s selfie he calls “Snook Angel” was shot on a 23-snook day in south Pine Island canals.
FISH TIP
When it comes to great baits for winter fishing, it’s hard to beat a live shrimp on a lead jig head like the one dangling from this trout’s mouth. Molded in a style reminiscent of a boxing glove, these jigs keep a shrimp bumping along the bottom in a natural upright position, kicking up little puffs of sand as they go. The shrimp are irresistible for any number of predators hungry for a meal with few baitfish around. And the lead weight provides hook-setting inertia when clenched in the hard mouth of winter’s prime seafood delicacy, the sheepshead.
HOT SPOTS
No. 1: Keys and creeks around I-75 for redfish action.
No. 2: Saltwater panfish and maybe a grouper offshore.
No. 3: Snook in Pine Island canals.
No. 4: Sanibel docks for sheepshead.
No. 5: San Carlos Bay for trout.
No. 6: Sheepshead in Big Hickory Pass.
No. 7: Lake Trafford for crappie.
LAKE OKEECHOBEE
No. 1: Crappie off the mouth of the Kissimmee River.
No. 2: North Shore for schooling bass and nice crappie.
No. 3: Uncle Joe’s Cut for crappie.
No. 4: West Wall for crappie.
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