Decent May Action So Far in Naples Backwaters

I am a little delayed with my fishing report. Time has just gotten away from me for the last few weeks. A busy April flew by and here we are into May! The fishing action has been very good overall with some large snook, redfish, tarpon and sharks making appearances. Snook fishing has been good with fish ranging to the 20 lb. mark in the passes and channels near the outside. Plenty of small fish are still scattered through the back bays and taking live baits as well as soft plastic swim baits and flies. Redfish have been reliable as well and as usual the higher tide phases provide the best opportunities with well placed baits under the mangrove cover. We did find a good number of reds on a recent trip while fishing a falling tide under several docks behind Keewaydin Island. There were snook and some seatrout to 20 inches mixed in. Tarpon are of course the stars of the late spring line up in Southwest Florida and they are showing in good numbers. They are being found in the larger inside bays and when the weather and wind are cooperating, along the beaches. Starting last weekend, we have had a prevailing NW wind making the gulf waters very rough and turbid shutting down the beach run tarpon fishing for a few days. I expect it to bounce back by next weekend when the winds finally turn around and the waters clear up. We should continue to have good tarpon shots through June. Capt. Todd Geroy