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Wildfly Charters Capt. Gregg McKee reports his second cast of a white jerk shad connected with this 34-inch redfish. Redfish season reopened under new rules Sept. 1 in Southwest Florida waters. See Fish Tip for details. -
Cape Coral Tarpon Hunter Vince Parkinson was fishing a pinfish on top, in 17 feet of water at the Sanibel Causeway, when this 36-inch cobia horned in on the action last Wednesday. -
Travis Wellner’s bass was a dandy for summertime. He caught it on a wild shiner with Roland Martin Marina & Resort Capt. Bo White. -
Destin angler Anthony Thompson was freelining a live pinfish near Mound Key last Friday when this 32-inch redfish took notice, on his Get Hooked Charter with Capt. Matt DeAngelis. -
If you love redfish for dinner, Dered Bellinger’s 25-1/2-incher, caught on a Get Hooked Charter, would be a beaut. Redfish reopened on Southwest Florida with a bag limit of one, and vessel limit of two, 18 to 27 inches total length. -
Carrie Cavallaro’s 28-1/2-inch snook won’t be perfect keeper size until snook season reopens in March, 2023. She caught it Sunday on her Get Hooked Charter with Capt. Matt DeAngelis. -
FWC fishery managers issued an executive order Aug. 30 that continues the snook harvest closure through Nov. 30, 2022, for the Charlotte Harbor area. Snook won’t reopen in “Charlotte Harbor” until March, 2023.
If you’re confused about snook fishing regulations in Southwest Florida, you’re not alone. In an August 31 news release, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said ” normal regulations for redfish, snook and spotted seatrout will resume on Sept. 1, 2022.” That means snook season would have reopened through Nov. 30.
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Two minutes later another release said snook in the Charlotte Harbor region, including all of Charlotte and Lee counties, would remain closed by executive order until Dec. 1. So under “normal regulations,” snook can’t reopen hereabouts until March, 2023.
The executive order cites reasons for the closure as “the impacts that recent declines in seagrass habitat and other environmental factors in Charlotte Harbor may have on the snook fishery.”
Sigh!
ESTERO BAY: Get Hooked Charter Capt. Matt DeAngelis’s fishing report boded well for anglers hoping to take home snook and redfish, beginning Sept. 1. He sent in two pictures of anglers who caught and released oversize redfish near Mound Key, and a 25-incher released last Friday after Arkansas angler Derek Bellinger used cut pinfish to tempt it at a central bay oyster bar. Fishing the mangroves and bars has been good during higher tides, with live or cut baits.
SANIBEL: Vince Parkinson reports he was anchored in 17 feet of water at the Sanibel Causeway, baiting for tarpon with a live pinfish near the surface, when this 36-inch cobia made the mistake of trying a tarpon bait diet.
Marcus Finger reported a rare catch he made in the course of trying for trophy size snook at night from the beach on Sanibel. He was using a large cut bait when he caught and released a large lemon shark with a rare genetic trait called leucism, whereby only half of the shark’s skin had normal pigment.
PINE ISLAND: St. James City Capt. George Grosselfinger was up early Thursday trying for snook, and hooked three tarpon while fishing jigs in cuts through islands that increase the current, and fish activity. He also hooked three tarpon — two on jigs and one on a topwater plug — Wednesday evening, fishing stronger currents around keys in southeastern Pine Island Sound. He didn’t catch any snook, but also reports easy trout dinners on the seagrass flats in the same area, where he uses topwater plugs that attract strikes from larger specks.
Wildfly Charters Capt. Gregg McKee also reports “having no trouble with a handful of legal trout each day,” on both sides of Pine Island. He also has been seeing very large schools of redfish, especially at high tide around mangrove points. He’s holding a 34-incher in the Pic of the Week. And he’s been in good shape to take inshore slams, including juvenile tarpon rolling along mangrove shorelines within fly casting range.
CHARLOTTE HARBOR: King Fisher bay boat guides out of Fishermen’s Village Marina in Punta Gorda reports good trout action on the harbor’s east side flats, where mostly undersize specks have been mixed with an unusual number of keepers in high-teen lengths. Parties also have been coming to the dock with occasional pompano, and with some six-trout vessel limits, a regulation that expired on Sept. 1. The angler daily bag limit remains at three trout, with no vessel restrictions.
Traveling far enough down the harbor to find schools of live scaled sardines has been hampered by windy weather on some days, so snook action along upper harbor mangroves using live shrimp has been good, if limited to undersize linesides. There also has been good action on mangrove snapper to 12 inches.
OFFSHORE: Offshore reports have been limited by the closure of red grouper fishing in state and federal waters since Tuesday, Aug. 30, for the remainder of 2022. Tuesday’s King Fisher trip to depths around 65 feet out of Boca Grande Pass still produced a nice box of lane snapper while bottom fishing with cut squid and herrings, plus a few Spanish mackerel that hit the same baits, freelined in the current with no weights. Lots of red grouper also were released, without comment on size.
FRESHWATER
LAKE TRAFFORD: Lake Trafford Marina reports Airboats and Alligators Capt. Kenny Rogers fished Tuesday with minnows over one of the lake’s offshore gravel beds — part of FWC habitat improvements to provide better spawning habitat, including an area off the Ann Olesky Park Pier — where he caught four crappie, a bluegill and two catfish.
Anglers who have been fishing with live domestic shiners for peacock bass in the canals of the Big Cypress National Preserve seem to have taken last weekend off.
LAKE OKEECHOBEE: Roland Martin Marina & Resort Capt. Bo White reports great bass action with live golden shiners and artificials, while it lasts. Early starts are mandatory. He recommends fishing shallow grass patches all the way around the south end of the lake, from the McMillain Cross to Kreamer Island, and likes Mud Minnow pattern Z-Man Pop Shadz when throwing fake bait. The veteran guide also predicts the last bluegill bedding activity of the year will occur along Observation Shoal around the full moon on Sept. 10: “Cricket time!”
PIC OF THE WEEK
Open season on redfish in Florida’s new South Zone, including all of Southwest Florida, began Thursday.
FISH TIP
Who says Southwest Florida doesn’t have any change of seasons? At the literal eleventh hour the Executive Director of Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission issued an order that keeps the snook season effectively closed until next March. That is, “unless rescinded or extended by subsequent order.” Given the hubbub the extension is sure to cause by salivating snook anglers who have waited four years for another snook dinner, that could happen, too. For now, the green area of the map shows where snook fishing still is by catch and release, only. In other rule changes, redfish harvest opened Thursday in the new Sarasota Bay, Charlotte Harbor and Southwest Regions, with a daily bag limit of one, 18 to 27 inches, and a new vessel limit of two. Trout rules changed too, with the elimination of the six-trout vessel limit, and continuation of the three-trout per angler daily bag limit.
HOT SPOTS
No. 1: Charlotte Harbor’s east side flats for trout and snapper.
No. 2: Upper Pine Island Sound and Matlacha Pass for redfish and trout
No. 3: Offshore for lane snapper and mixed panfish.
No. 4: Trout on southeastern Pine Island Sound flats.
No. 5: Estero Bay for redfish.
No. 6: Big Hickory Pass docks for catch-and-release snook.
No. 7: Lake Trafford for mixed fish fry fodder over gravel beds.
LAKE OKEECHOBEE
No. 1: Observation Shoal for bluegill around next week’s full moon.
No. 2: Outside grass patches for bass.
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