Fishing Reports

2024

Fishing Report for Charlotte Harbor and Clearwater 12/11/2024

Three days on the water in the last 4 days with plenty of insights to share. First off the snook fishing has really slowed down and the trout fishing is absolutely on fire. In Clearwater we found an absolute pile of speckled sea trout and almost every one we landed was over 20 inches. On a rather interesting note, they wouldn’t eat shrimp at all so I tried the trusty mirrolure and that didn’t even work! I then switched to a paddle tail and jig head with a white body which ended up killing it. We also tried a darker color paddle tail that didn’t produce anything either. Super picky fish. In utter sweet irony the same thing happened the next day in Charlotte Harbor. We were trout fishing and they only wanted the white paddle tail. “Slam Shady” was the color of choice. I can say….there isn’t much out there that competes with that color when it comes to paddle tails. I also fished up the myakka river yesterday and the fish were just off. We caught a couple of fish but the numbers just weren’t there. We had to cut our day short because the no see ums were so bad we couldn’t stay out….this only means I have to fish more and try and find where all the river snook went. Dont worry snookers….Ill find you. Overall limits on trout both days out was nice, and appears to be very repeatable. So all good news on that front!

Fishing Report for Charlotte Harbor 12/2/2024

Today we had the pleasure of spending time with a fellow guide on the water scouting some new spots for low tide winter fishing. When we hit the water the tide was at a negative low and the wind was pushing water out of the harbor at a rate of over 20mph. We examined our maps to find some water that had potential to be deeper but still close to the shallows and we found a 5ft deep cut we believed would hold fish. While it was definitely sketchy getting to the deeper water we made it through and boy were there fish in there! We landed almost 40 trout and I would say 85% of them were keeper size with a couple over slots in there as well. We found some snook that wouldn’t eat, landed a few lady fish and decided it was time to scout some more. We ran around a bunch and didn’t find too many more fish, but the fish we found were all willing to eat. I didn’t have any jigs on the boat so we used mirrolures which did the trick. I think if we had jigs we would have landed a bunch more fish since the mirrolures didn’t make it deep enough to really get down to where the fish were. We also threw the fly to some trout and they were more than happy to eat up a shrimp fly with no issues. After this last cold front most of the snook have moved to the rivers to stay warm for the winter. The trout bit is in fire in Charlotte harbor and should remain that way for the next couple of months. Snook fishing will be good in the rivers and backwaters. Find some deeper holes and use paddle tails or DOA shrimp being dragged on the bottom for the best bite.

Fishing Report for Clearwater Florida 11/25/2024

I was fortunate enough to run charter out of Clearwater yesterday and we ended up really having a great day on the water. I say lucky because in talking to a number of the captains up there, no one has any business. Tourism has dropped off due to the hurricanes and even the offshore guys with red snapper season being open are not booking up. This is huge disappointment and I have seen a number of really good captains finding other jobs. Our industry is a dying one at times and it really takes a special person to be able to guide full time. I genuinely wish I could guide every day, but unfortunately the business just isn’t there. Conditions were mixed - fishing near the beaches or the passes had a ton of dirty water and didn’t produce a damn fish. I made a call to another guide I knew was on the water and he found some cleaner water up by palm harbor so we made the run up there. It was a nice surprise to see some clean water. I decided to go for low hanging fruit (speckled sea trout) and found a spot where the outgoing tide mixed with good grass around a spoil island that I have fished previously and felt we had a good chance at landing some trout. I put on some live shrimp for my clients and I threw my trusty mirrolure. They landed double digit trout and all slot or above slot size within an hour which was nice to see. I decided it was time to make things harder and try to find some reds or snook to play with. First spot didn’t hold a dang fish, but as I started to troll around we did find a number of large snook holding close to cover in clean water. Lots of mullet everywhere and some fry bait for forage. We threw shrimp and some cut bait at the snook and ended up with nothing. Once again I grabbed my mirrolure and made some casts as far as I could. We ended up hooking 2 big snook and landed one. The other rubbed through my 25lb leader and we lost her. Both snook were over 30 inches with the bigger one was right around 35. We saw a couple of reds but had no luck with them. Once again all of these fish were very skittish and it took the longest cast possible to reach them.

My son and I also fished the myakka river north of 41 the night before and we ended up having quite a good couple of hours up there. We landed a number of snook, tilapia and gar while fishing. The water was in great shape, fish were everywhere. The scenery is always great on our river systems and I absolutely love fishing up there. The best part is you never know what you have on the other end; from snook to bass to gar and tilapia it’s always a surprise. All of our fish were landed on the mirrolure 17mr in white pattern. I literally can’t think of a better lure.

Fishing Report 11/14/2024

I spent some time scouting what I would call winter or cooler month hide out places for snook in Charlotte Harbor. I went out with my silver shadow skiff and was prepared to catch some fish on artificial lures. I started the day out at El Jobean bridge where other than a dolphin there was virtually no fish action at all. I even caught the tide on the beginning of an incoming tide and really thought I would hook up with a couple fish. I threw a lot of different lures at spots around the bridge for the better part of 2 hours and didn’t get a single bite. That was pretty depressing to be honest. I then went to the Myakka cutoff and threw around some of the islands and creeks in that area. Once again…..No bites. Feeling rather disappointed I was literally scratching my head wondering what is going on here. I gathered as much info as I could and thought maybe these fish just aren’t up in the harbor as much yet, I looked at the water temp and its hovering around 78 ( which is good, but still warm) and figured I would have to run a bit more south if I wanted to catch anything. The wind was blowing 15-20 and I had to cross the Myakka river to get somewhere that may be better. I trimmed the boat down and let her eat the waves. I ran up Trout Creek a bit and once I got further in I found a great spot that was holding plenty of fish. For about 30min I was getting hit on every cast. Landed about 6 fish in that time frame and called it a day. So to wrap it all up, the fish really didn’t want to eat on the incoming tide or they just haven’t moved into the upper harbor just yet. Plenty of smaller snook around, but no sign of baitfish or birds diving on anything. We have a cold front coming through in the next day or two and that will surly shake it all up. It will be interesting to see the same spots and my guess is this cold front will start pushing fish further up the harbor and closer to their winter hide outs. Mangrove snapper are around lots of places and sheepshead fishing remains productive around docks and bridges. Snook are holding tight to cover and looking to ambush their prey. Make accurate casts and make sure those casts are in the cover. Tight lines!

Fishing Report 11/9/2024

Recently we have been fishing Port Charlotte from the upper harbor to placida and Cape Haze (Turtle Bay and Bull Bay) and the fishing has been very good! There is some red tide around, but it is not affecting fishing at all. We are landing around 20 snook per 4hr trip even with inexperienced anglers. We had one day where the wind was very high and the tide was not only very low but we also had no water movement and we still had excellent fishing landing approximately 12 snook, a couple reds, a couple trout and a couple jacks. Mind you I prefer to artificial lure fish making fishing that much harder, but more rewarding than slinging bait and cut bait. The lure of choice continues to be the Mirror Lure MR17 with color choices remaining consistently lighter colors in the stained water. The water has been extra dirty with visibility under 2ft, so I have opted for the lighter whites, holographic colors and those are working very well. Bait is abundant not only in Boca Grande but also up in Clearwater there are droves of bait everywhere you look. There are even sardines up to 4 inches long just cruising the intercostal. Off the beach in clearwater black drum and pompano are abundant, however as you travel a bit south by Johns Pass and Madeira Beach the red tide is more abundant where Indian rocks beach and clearwater seem to be on the mend from the recent bloom of bacteria. No respiratory issues and very very few dead fish tells me the bloom is not strong but it’s still there. Snook and reddish have been caught around the mangroves of Calidisi and plenty of bigger snook are still on the beaches around Honeymoon and as far south as Shell Key we found plenty of schools of large snook. Live bait will be nearly the only daytime snack for these bruisers. Shrimp or Pilchards will get those snooks attention! I wish y’all the best of luck and go catch em up!