Marco Island, Ft. Myers & Boca Grande

Tarpon and Permit! Tarpon and permit were the stars of the show last week before the winds and cold moved in on us. Warm spring like weather and light winds combined to produce the best catches of the year so far off Marco Island. Since then however, another cold front followed by 7 deays of 20-25 knot winds have made us change tactics. I chose to fish move my trip up to Pine Island during the windy weather since the area is much less affected by winds due to the vast expanse of shallow grass flats. Permit: About a week ago we were finding large schools of permit in the 30lb class just offshore of Marco island. We did well by sightcasting with dollar size crabs. Tarpon: I had an excellent week on tarpon from 60-150 pounds in the Marco island area. Live hearring did the best with cut bait a second choice. I found that the falling tide had a better bite. There are also tarpon scattered in the backcountry. Snook: Snook fishing in Pine Island Sound really kicked off for the first time this year just after the cold front passed though. That a weird thing because usually the fishing sticks just after fronts. We caught most of the snook using live shiners. A keeper or two wasn't uncommon every day this past week. Redfish: They continue to be stron in Pine island and Charlotte Harbor. We caught reds every day last week in Pine Island. Some days we got reds up to 30" and others we could only manage a few up to 20". Shrimp under the bushes was the best producers. Sharks were so abundant in the 10,000 Island they were a nuciance. In Pine Island we have beeen targeting sand sharks up to 7 feet long with pretty good success. Cut mackerel on the bottom produced well. I've been guiding 19 day in a row now so i'm sure there is going to be some spelling error and such for this report but i'm to tired to check it. I've got another 15 days to go before i get a day off so bear with me. I'll get off another report when i can. Good Luck! Capt. Scott Hughes Blackwater Charters 941-575-2389 941-628-4247 cell