Today we started our Fort Myers fishing charter at 5am and were able to get in a solid hour of night fishing before first light. The Snook bite was fantastic, one of the clients caught a nice 30” Snook on a fly rod. Both clients had shots at Tarpon before 1st light and missed them unfortunately. In the summer it’s a really good idea to start fishing an hour and a half or two hours before daylight. This gives you the best of both worlds you can fish in relatively cool temperatures for three hours before the sun comes up and it gets really hot.
The spec trout fishing continues to be very good in the Fort Myers area, it just shows how well catch and release works. Clients have been catching numerous spec trout on just about every flat in Estero Bay, the thing you need to remember is that with these high water temperatures the fish will retreat to the deepest water they can find during the day since it will be cooler. So flats that border any of the navigation channels or other deep water areas or holding many different species of fish. We’ve had our best luck using soft plastic swim baits that are around 3 inches and resemble a white bait
In addition to our resident Tarpon there are some free roaming fish that are coming in from the Gulf of Mexico and early in the morning they will absolutely crush a top water bait. Most of our strikes have been on Zara spooks fished as fast as your skills allow, and remember to keep the bait moving when Tarpon hits. Their aim isn’t the best so keep that bait moving and until you actually feel weight on the end of the line. As the saying goes reel until you feel, then set the hook multiple times as fast as you can before that fish has a chance to jump and get off.
I’m going to repeat for this fishing report what I mentioned in my previous one if you’re planning on a Fly Fishing charter for Tarpon with us in Fort Myers please spend the time practicing strip sets at home. The very best practice there is to go to your local waters and strip set on everything that bites, that way it won’t feel so foreign and you won’t make that critical mistake of forgetting when that big fish finally bites.
We have seem some evidence of redfish poaching this summer during our current catch and release only regulations. If you see someone catching and keeping a redfish please approach their boat notify them that you witnessed them illegally harvesting a redfish and insist that they release it. The only way our redfish are going to come back to the numbers we had 10 years ago is for everyone to protect the fishery. We can’t expect FWC be everywhere. So let’s take good care our redfish until they have had a chance to make a full come back.
See you on the water!
Capt Eric…
Capt Eric Anderson
Capt Scott Anderson
What A Hawg Charters.