Marco Island, Ft. Myers & Boca Grande

Redfish tournament results and Pine Island reds The past few weeks have been busy practiceing for the first two professional redfish tournaments of the season. I was lucky enought to get 3rd place in the Redfish Cup Allstars "Ice Breaker" last week. Most of my fishing has been out of Cleawater and Tarpon Springs, Florida. I've had some great catches of reds 18-30 inches on high tides near the outer islands near Clearwater. North of Clearwater I've been focusing on the creeks and bays near the shore. I've been finding schools of reds holding on the outside of these bays. High tide has been the best for getting them to eat. I've been using soft plastics rigged weedless. At home in Pine Island Sound I'm still getting plenty of smaller reds in the 18-23 inch range. The water is much cooler than it has been and the smaller reds are holding in the deeper runs of the flats. The bigger reds are schooled up on the shallow flats. They have been "tailing" on a low rising tide. Soft plastics, live shrimp and cut ladyfish have been catching the bigger reds. The forecast for the next few weeks should be much of the same except the snook bite should start to improve if we get some days in the 80's. Good Luck! Capt. Scott Hughes Blackwater Charters 941-628-4247 cell