Water is warming

More of the same thing this week in Southwest Florida. The wind blew like hell for four of the seven days we had. The water once again is all muddy, with the best visibility I have seen all week, being about one and a half feet. Inshore fishing was good even in the tough conditions. The nearshore bite was doable a few days and productive. The one or two days the offshore boats did run fish were caught.
Starting off with the back water this week, the flats’ boat guys had to share it with tower boats. Wind keeps the nearshore guys from going out front to chase tarpon and what not, so they end up trying to be shallow water guides. Trout up to 24inches have been caught every day this week. Red fishing especially on the days with overcast was outstanding. Shrimp and cut baits worked best all week. The snook bite was good for a few days and then the cool off from the “Hopefully” last front stopped the bite. Tarpon up to 100pounds showed up this week in good numbers, so that will be in play till November.
The few days the nearshore was calm enough to go out, fishing was good. Tripletail were brought into the fillet stations up to 15pounds. All the rough weather has kept boaters away from running trap lines. Less people triple tailing means better triple tailing for those that do. This will be the last of the trap running weeks, as stone crab season ends in May. The tarpon moved in from the South and can be found right off the beaches all the way out into the gulf. Typical baits for tarpon are crabs that are in the 3inch range, cut baits, and even threadfin herring. Permit continue to be the fall back when the tarpon do not cooperate. Permit are crab eaters as well and prefer a smaller crab than the tarpon would.
Offshore happened basically twice this week. Even on the days they went out, we had some decent rollers left over from the storms. Red grouper as well as a variety of snappers were caught during the short amount of time they could fish. Sardines as well as squid was the primary bait of choice dropped straight down to the hard bottom in about 110feet.
Tight lines, Capt. Greg Stamper
Snookstampcharters.com Fort Myers beach, Fl
239-313-1764