Marco Island, Ft. Myers & Boca Grande

They're..... Back! This past week started out with winds blowing about 20-25 knots but ended with light breeze and calm seas. It took most of the week for the water to clear up enough for the tarpon to show back up. On Thursday we spotted a few and by the weekend most guides were scoring on tarpon from 30 to 150 pounds. Out of Ft Myers, the water was still churned up from the rough seas and all that we could get was grouper in some of the deep holes around the mangroves. Tarpon weren’t the main species caught for most of the week but they came on strong enough in the end to get the top species for this week. Tarpon are showing up on the outside and in the passes from Evereglades City to Coon Key Pass. Cut ladyfish produced the most strikes with live sardines also enticing a few smaller tarpon. On the outside large thread herring were the ticket for getting extremely large tarpon from 100+ pounds. Large sharks were by far the most active that I’ve found them this year. We hooked blacktip, bull, tiger, and hammerhead using cut ladyfish in the main passes of the 10,000 Islands. Most of the sharks were over 75-pounds and some pushed the limit at 200-pounds. Rising tide seemed to provide a better bite than the falling tide. A few good-sized tarpon also fed with the sharks. Like I mentioned earlier, grouper were the main attraction in Pine Island Sound. Large sardines produced immediate results and pinfish brought strikes also. Deep holes around the mangroves are good places to start looking for grouper. We found that pitching sardines with a 1-oz egg sinker produced better than free-lined sardines. Snook and trout were scattered among the catches this week. The trout were very large; most were around the 20-inch maximum. Snook were mostly undersized and scattered. Small live sardines caught both, but snook fishing was fair at best. The next four weeks will be mainly devoted to tarpon and shark fishing, but I’ll try to keep up with other guides and post what they do on the snook scene. I’ll also not be fishing out of Ft Myers for about a month. I still have March 31 and April 1st become available, which about as good as it gets for tarpon out of Marco Island. Its rare that a prime date like that comes open this late, so first come first serve. I’ll try to update by within 8-10 days. Good Luck! Capt. Scott Hughes Blackwater Charters 863-946-9171 [email protected]