Up and Down Fishing in the Naples and Marco Waters in October

Fishing in the Naples and Marco waters has been up and down and all around for the last of September and it seems to be continuing into October. We are catching fish especially Snook and Snapper but few of the Snook are keepers. Good concentrations on most days, then you have a difficult day thrown in to keep you honest. Red fishing has been here today gone tomorrow. Find them one day and the next you struggle. Tarpon in the passes in the mornings have been consistent but hard to target after that. Catching a few small ones in the back country but only one or two per trip have been falling to flies and Jerk Baits. Fly fishing at night has been good for Snook on small flies and I have been catching some on the outgoing on shrimp patterns. Still few keepers have been hitting the boat. Seems like we have a great number of 26 and 27 inchers along with quite a few 34 and 35 inchers around. Not that it matters to me most of my clients practice catch and release and I would rather eat Snapper than Snook. I hesitate to tell you about all the fish I am seeing on the beaches because everyday I go out there is a big question mark. I fished the beach 4 days in a row, two days I found hundreds of Snook Schools of Black Drum a few Redfish and large numbers of Pompano. Two days same conditions and could hardly find a fish, very strange. I am also finding fairly large schools of small Permit. They are smaller than the fish I have found in years past but in higher concentrations. Running about a pound to a pound and a half small and feisty. They are falling prey to small clouser type flies and bonefish patterns. Something different. Tough to spot but when you do see them they are fairly easy to get to bite. Not something I would want to spend all day doing because they are small but kind of cool to throw into a morning of catching Snook. I like to use a 20 pound Shock for them because I am throwing the same flies to the Snook cruising the beach.