Flats fishing report for Fort Myers

Monday, January 12. 2009 Fort Myers winter fishing report So far all my fishing this month has been in the fort Myers area. I've focused on fishing in Charlotte Harbor as well as Matlacha and Pine Island Sound. We've had some of the lowest tides of the year this past week and that has helped boost up my numbers. We've also had some excellent weather. Winds have been relatively light and the water temperature is up in the low 70's. There are still alot of speckeled trout on the outside of the bars in 3-5 ft of water with heavy grass. These areas have been targeted quite a bit due to the open season on trout and many of the larger fish have been harvested. To get catch the more quality trout I've been running my shallow draft flats skiff into the most remote areas of the harbor and fishing the potholes and sloughs that hold the redfish and trout during these extremely low tides. Early in the mornings the water temperatures have been lower and I've had the best sucess throwing soft plastics like Fishbites, Gulp and Texas Tackle Factory lures. As the Sun warms the water, I've been having my customers switch to Mirrolure MR17's twitch baits. When the bite turns on to the twitch baits some really good numbers can be caught. Two of my last three backcountry trip have produced over 80 trout and close to a dozen redfish using this lure. I did get to run one offshore trip last week and other than catching one of the largest amberjacks of the season we didn't do that well. We had a hard time catching bait and by the time we got where we were going the front had started approaching and it got rough. We had to come in a little early and caught a few snook and trout before we got back to the dock. Good Luck! Capt. Scott Hughes Blackwater Charters 941-575-2389 hm 941-628-4247 cell www.blackwatercharters.com