Perfect weather for fishing
The first weekend of October greeted us with absolutely perfect weather, the skies were blue and the temperature, humidity and wind were all down making for fantastic fishing opportunities. Reports varied from good to not so good, but everyone agreed that it was great just to be on the water if the fish were biting or not.
Offshore conditions were breezy early in the week then settled down nicely for the weekend. A few legal size grouper plus lots of shorts were caught west of Captiva Pass in depths less than fifty feet. Mangrove snapper up to three pounds were also caught in the same depths over rock ledges with live pinfish dropped to the bottom working best for both the snapper and grouper. Red snapper season opened on the first of the month, I don’t have anything to report this week but a few Captains were making the long run out for overnight trips over the weekend. Hopefully we will have some good reports next week.
Close to shore there has been plenty of activity with everything from tarpon to ladyfish. All the gamefish are keying on schools of baitfish moving down the coast. Scattered tarpon were sighted just off the beach south of Redfish Pass and between the Light house and Knapp’s Point on Sanibel. They were most active the first few hours after sunrise. Spanish mackerel, bonito and sharks were also feeding in the bait schools. Look for birds and surface activity on the water to locate the feeding frenzies. A few tripletail were also reported just off shore hanging under the idle zone markers south of Blind Pass along Sanibel’s Beach.
Inshore, the best bet was schooling redfish if you could find them and sea trout with some really good size trout caught again this week. Over the mid day falling tides oversize redfish were reported inside Captiva and Boca Grande Passes schooling near docks and pilings. A variety of live baitfish drifted just off bottom with the tide worked best for the reds with just about all the fish well over legal size. Schools of oversize fish were also reported between Captiva Pass and Useppa Island in the northern Sound.
Trout action continues to be a welcome surprise, not for the numbers of fish but for the size. We caught a good number of fish this week over twenty-inches with the largest measuring an honest twenty-seven inches, that’s a “gator” trout! Same as the previous weeks we are catching the larger fish in areas holding schooling mullet from Matlacha to Bokeelia. A little out of the ordinary, but with the recent rains flushing lots of fresh water into the bays we are also catching a few big garfish each day. This happens about every summer after the heavy rains, but this year the garfish seem a little larger than in the past.
Decent trout fishing was also reported on the grass flats on either side of the Sanibel Causeway between the B and C span and over four to seven foot deep grass flats south of Demere Key, near the Flamingo Bay channel.
Mark your calendar for October 17th, that’s the date for the Pine Island Elementary annual Fishing Derby & Tournament. It’s a great event presented by the Matlacha Hookers with all proceeds to benefit the kids at our elementary school. As usual its held at the Olde Fish House Marina in Matlacha with a Kids Derby from the docks and the weigh-in for the Fishing Tournament at 3:00 PM. This is a very affordable tournament at $50 per angler and includes a T-shirt and fish fry after weigh-in. For more information contact Karen Burns at (239) 283-3875. Let’s mark it on the calendar and support our Island school children by attending this event, you will be glad you did.
If you have a fishing story or for charter information, please contact us at 239-283-7960 or www.fishpineisland.com. Have a safe week and good fishin’.