Pine Island Sound, Charlotte Harbor & Matlacha Pass

The sun had just come up when I dropped the anchor over the side.I had just arrived at my favorite hole for catching bait.After about 10 minutes of chumming I started to fill the live well to the brim with greenbacks and pinfish.With the well fully loaded I went to pick up my clients at the Punta Rassa boat ramp.Matt and Rick Brooks along with Duerk Zinn all from the Cleveland Ohio area.Our first stop started out a little slow until we drifted into one spot that produced 4 nice trout. After about an hour and a half I decided to try for some snook and redfish.We headed for Matlacha pass.At the first stop we had only one strike.We moved to a different spot which produced nothing.Next spot we tried for some more trout.After catching some small trout we managed one trout of 17"long.After trying one more spot for snook we headed for Pine Island Sound.We only managed one strike which was missed. It was plain to see the sound was not giving up anything on this trip.It was getting late so I decided to return to the first stop and finish the day on some seatrout.The tide was just starting to go out as we got there.After baiting up with some regular size greenbacks. Matt,Rick and Duerk started to weed through some smaller fish and started to pick up some nice trout.After getting some fish in the 16" to 18" range we baited up with some super large greenbacks and began to catch fish that were 193/4" and 197/8"long.The largest one caught was 23"long.They would catch 12 keepers and quite a few under sized trout. With the water temperature at around 68 degrees we need maybe one more week of warm weather to spark the snook to feed on a regular basis.I am looking for March to be a good month for snook since most of Febuary's water temperature was below 70 degrees.Redfish should also take off as the water warms a little.Well that will do it for this week.See ya on the water.