Snook Redfish And Seatrout Since writing my last report Florida has done just what Florida does. The weather turned around and it looks like spring is here. Temperatures have been in the lower to mid 80’s and the water temps are rising daily. Charlotte Harbor has begun to see some summer like high tides again. The water clarity is good and live bait is steady. I have found schools of redfish on the bars of the east wall and snook in deep pockets on fast moving tides, the sea trout are still plentiful with some 5lb plus fish taken in the deep potholes. Tarpon should begin to show. Kingfish are being taken just south of Ft. Myers so they should start to show in our area in a few weeks. Last week I took Dan L from Punta Gorda out along with three of his friends. We took two boats and I had my tournament-fishing partner Capt. Jim Stephens take two of Dan’s friends and I took Dan and Glen on my boat. We started around 7:00am and I took Dan along to catch the bait so we could get a jump on everybody else out on the water. We made a few stops and caught a variety of fish on every stop the tides where extremely low so we had to stay out of the back bays and just hit the potholes, which put 5 nice trout in the livewell for dinner. Later we found a nice pod of snook and chummed them up with some live bait and slowly trolled back and forth past them with the trolling motor, pitching baits to the snook proved to be effective and Dan and Glen each caught 8-10 snook each, with Dan adding a 27 inch 7lb snook to his trout dinner. Over the next few weeks I will be mentioning the upcoming RedSnook Tournament series that takes place in Charlotte Harbor. Anyone familiar with the tournament knows it has become one of the hottest and best series tournaments in the State. This year the CCA has taken over running the tournament and have transformed it into Pro/Am. By having a professional division and amateur division they hope to bring more anglers to the tournament who do not get to be on the water as much as some one like myself. Professionals are closed out of the amateur division while any who wants to step up to the plate to the professional division can do so. If you are interested in the tournament you can find more details at there web site www.redsnook.com “Good Things Come To Those With Bait” Capt Andy Boyette