Marco Island, Ft. Myers & Boca Grande

Snook and Tarpon Attack! Light east winds opened up the tarpon fishing and we had some big scores with giant snook this past week. Live sardines and thread herring were the ticket for all the species that we caught. With the wind not blowing us off the open water, we decided to put the artificial lures away and focus on some “big” fish. The tarpon are out of the “staging” period and are cruising north to spawn in Boca Grande Pass and Tampa Bay. These fish are 80-150 pounds and can be found up to 5 miles offshore. Large live sardines, crabs, or mullet are my favorite baits with flies being fairly productive when the water is clear enough to see the pods. Last week we hooked up our fish using live 5-inch thread herring about a mile off Marco Island. My plan for the up coming week is to sight-fish the beaches from Sanibel to Boca Grande Pass. We got into the hottest snook fish of the year before the cold front on Saturday. John Washburn on his brother hit a 33-pound snook and a couple more in that range using live sardines around the mangroves in the upper 10,000 Islands. They also broke off nine other snook in the mangroves. The larger snook are moving into the points and edges of the outer islands and there are larger numbers of smaller snook on the beaches and passes. My favorite baits for all of the fish are live-scaled sardines in the 2-4 inch range. We have been netting the smaller sardines on the beaches and gold hooking the larger sardines in 12-22 feet offshore. There are still large schools of spanish mackerel offshore from Everglades City to Boca Grande Pass. We didn’t focus any of our attention to the mackerel this week because we wanted to maximize our time on tarpon and snook. Troll spoons and jigs for the best luck with the mackerel or throw a fly for the most sport. We are catching numerous sharks while tarpon fishing. Most are blacktips with a few lemons and hammerheads mixed in. Also, any of the area passes will hold large sharks. A half of a mullet or ladyfish will draw a strike if a large tarpon does hit it first. This week I’ll be fishing more north near Cayo Costa Island. Tarpon will be the main target but if the wind changes to the west we’ll try for snook and redfish. So check back next week. Good Luck! Capt. Scott Hughes Blackwater Fishing Charters