Pine Island Sound, Charlotte Harbor & Matlacha Pass

The tide was near the high mark when I pulled in to the shallowest area in Matlacha pass that I know of.I was searching for redfish.I tied on a Cajun Thunder popping cork.I then tied on 16" of 30lb test mono which I attached a D.O.A. shrimp imitation.This seems to be the hot bait. Well instead of catching reds I proceeded to catch 8 nice seatrout from 17" to 24".This perticular area is real shallow with a dark mud bottom That has an area that drops from 12" to about 3ft.The fish have moved into these areas to warm up after the cold fronts pass by.The trick is to throw ahead of the boat and work the bait back with sharp jerks of the pole.This creates a popping and rattle with the corks. On Friday the 4th a cold front blew in and put a damper on the fishing.On Saturday the 5th I picked up my clients at the Punta Rassa boat ramp and we took off.The wind was blowing 20 to 30 mph.Needless to say this made fishing tough but we kept at it and soon was rewarded with a seatrout bite that finally heated up towards the afternoon.Again using D.O.A. shrimp imitations on popping corks and live shrimp we managed to get the fish to bite.We managed to catch about 30 fish which ran 13" to 16".After a change of locations we put one nice seatrout of 20" in the boat. On Sunday the 5th after netting some nice pinfish my clients and I went to the Sound to try for some large trout on some oyster bars but the fish were not in the mood.So changing to freelining some live pinfish to some tree snags in the Sound we managed to catch some grouper.My clients were broken off so many times on this tree that I was getting a workout rerigging poles.We also caught some nice sheepshead on the same tree freelining live shrimp.Well that will do it for this week.See ya on the water.Capt Glenn.