Trout Season Opens Fort Myers Area January 1st!

Another blast of cold weather rolled into the Fort Myers Beach area early in the week dropping both air and water temperatures. The fish have already moved into their winter pattern so the change didn't seem to matter much to them. A big warm up is forecast for this weekend and that should make for some excellent fishing. The solid trout bite going into the open season on January 1st, should make for some great action and table fare. We've been catching most of the larger ones in deep cuts and potholes on the lower tides and then up on the grass flats during high water. Live shrimp on jigs worked slowly across the bottom works best in the morning and then we switch to popping corks in the afternoon. They are also responding well to artificial Gulp Shrimp on jigs. The redfish have thinned out a bit, but when you find them you'll catch lots of "rats" and an occasional slot fish. Again, live shrimp on jig heads fished very slowly has been working best. Early in the week the bigger sheepshead showed up near the oyster bars in Estero Bay. Tipping a small 1/4 oz. jig with shrimp works great but don't wait too long to set the hook on these great bait stealers. It's been too windy to do much on the Gulf this past week but the one day we did manage to get out there we scored on several keeper gag grouper trolling Man's Stretch 25's just a few miles out.