Marco Island, Ft. Myers & Boca Grande

The Wind Doesn't Blow! It Sucks! I guess that wind gods aren’t going to let us start tarpon season early after all. After a couple of good weeks of chasing tarpon out of Marco Island a cold front slammed the door on us and brought winds up to 30 knots with it. Now with the water temperatures back in the high 60’s catching a tarpon is back to a guessing game. On the bright side, other types of fishing are still here and there is good bait and plenty of backcountry in the upper 10,000 Islands to get out of the wind. Large “gator” trout seem to be in almost every hole in the backcountry. Live sardines have caught most of them but bucktail jigs in yellow and brown is doing almost as well. Out on the flats, large numbers of smaller trout are hitting jigs and shrimp fished under popping corks. The flats south of Round Key and Whitehorse Keys have been the popular spots. Mixed numbers of redfish have been hitting jigs tipped with shrimp and small sardines in the northern end of Everglades National Park. West Pass and Gaskins Bay have been producing consistent catches of keeper reds and trout. A few snook have been caught on almost every trip the past two weeks. Most of the fish have been smaller than the 26-inch minimum length. Sardines are the best baits for the snook. When you can find very large sardines you’ll catch BIG SNOOK! Capt. Greg Bond’s customers landed snook of 39 and 40 inches on two trips this week and Capt. Bill Jones has been catching a few 30-inch fish on every trip out of Everglades National Park. Sharks have been showing up in the large rivers of the 10,000 Islands. Hammerhead, Bull and blacktip sharks have been eating mullet and ladyfish. These fish are pushing a few hundred pounds. Also, jewfish are still in the deep holes with the sharks and we even hooked a 110-pound tarpon in one of the holes last week. The forecast is uncertain for the nest two weeks. The wind has to lay for the water to clear and the water has to warm up again for the tarpon to come out and play. Probably after a week of 80-degree weather this week the tarpon will show up and we’ll catch some next week. Good Luck! Capt. Scott Hughes Blackwater Charters 863-946-9171 [email protected]