Tarpon and Snook 11/10/09

I have been on the water for the last week and the fishing has been as good as it gets in Naples. It has been very windy making it tough to fish certain areas. The pilchards were tough in the mornings with the strong outgoing tide, but mullet and tarpon were every where you looked. It was another week of tarpon fishing early then finishing the mornings off with snook fishing. We managed one fish to the boat almost every morning and got numerous keeper snook to 33in. The last two days pilchards have been very east to get with the tides now coming in first thing. The tarpon are still hammering mullet, you just have to know where to look. This morning we mainly snook fished but did manage to get two big tarpon to explode on mullet. We caught close to 50 snook, big jacks, snapper, ladyfish and a small jewfish. I only had to fish three spots for this action and was less than a mile from the marina. If you are thinking about booking a trip for Thanksgiving or Christmas, dont hesitate to call 239 404 6255. Its really getting busy in Naples and the fishing is excellent.

Tarpon Madness 10/30/09

The silver kings have made another great showing in Naples the last few days. They are in all the normal spots eating mullet,whitebait,threads,flies and baitbusters. This morning was absolutely amazing for tarpon, they put on a show for two hours before we left them to find more. We caught one around 80lbs missed a few and broke one off. We made a short run and waited for about five minutes and they went nuts. We boated two more in the 70lb range and jumped a few more. It was now about 1045am and we had enough time to catch some trout for dinner. We fished till 1145 and caught 20 trout to 19' bringing home 10 for dinner. The snook, tarpon and trout fishing has been great. We have a great full moon tide coming up early next week and the tarpon should stay great till a few days after. Snook and trout fishing has been on fire along with big jacks and plenty of mackeral off the beaches.

Naples Fishing 10/23/09

Wow the weather has been great and the only thing better has been the snook fishing. I had a handful of trips this week and the fishing in Naples was excellent. The nice big pilchards are finally here and are easily netted in 15ft of water. Wednesday was one of the best snook bites I have witnessed in the last few years. Wednesday I had two great anglers Lawrie and Jim for a morning of snook fishing. I left the dock at 7:45 and was off to get bait, two throws is all it took and we were fishing by 8:05. We stayed in one spot for almost two hours and they caught close to 40 snook and missed a good amount also. Most of the fish were in the 23-27" range, we also caught two nice jewfish to 10lbs. We left there and fished some deeper shorelines in the backwaters and managed about 20 more snook with the biggest coming in just under33'. Today I had another great angler Tom on the boat and we caught bait easily and again fished one spot for over an hour where we released 20 snook to 26". We left to try and find some trout and redfish, but the snook and snapper were to aggressive. The snapper were on a war path, but Tom got a nice keeper snook. Fall fishing has arrive and its only going to get better as we move later in the year. The bonita and kingfish are starting to show up just off the beaches and the trout and redfish should get into a good pattern soon. Lets get out and catch some fish 239 404 6255

Naples Fishing Report 10/17/09

As I type this we are getting the first big cold front of the year in Naples. It's blowing out of the northwest around 20 knots and the temps are dropping by the hour. It's forecast to be in the low 50's in the morning and then get right back into the 80's early next week. This front will help the fishing more than hurt it, it will be a few days before it calms down and the water clears. The water tempature was still 87 degrees which is hot, after this weather clears it will be 80-83 degrees. The fish will be hungry and more aggressive with the cooler water. Look for redfish and snook fishing to be great mid week and some trout and pompano should also be starting to show up in some of the deeper backwater spots. Tarpon should give us a few more shots this week early morning on the outgoing tides. This is also the time of year I start fishing the inshore wrecks for cobia, kingfish, barracuda, sharks and bonita. Chumming with live bait and light tackle is a blast on these shallow wrecks. It's also that time of year where season is upon us and it's getting busy. If you are thinking of going fishing don't hesitate to call, Thanksgiving and Christmas week are very busy and fill in quickly. Thanks and hope to fish with you o
in the future.

Tarpon Fishing Naples 10/11/09

I have always said October is one of the best months to tarpon fish in Naples. This last week was as good as it gets anywhere for tarpon. I started the week fishing with good friend and guide Jeff Legutkiout of Naples. I put the boat in the water early to hit the early outgoing tide in the Pass. We netted some ladyfish and big pilchards and set up around 630. After a quick anchor switch I was hooked up to a nice fish around 60lbs, nice release and I hooked up again only throw the hook on the second jump. We were setup perfect the only problem was another boat trying to anchor 25ft behind us, some people just dont understand. Jeff hooked the third fish and got her to the boat and we decided to go search some areas off the beaches. Every Fall huge schools of bait make there way south were tarpon, sharks, mackeral and plenty of seagulls are waiting. It wasnt 10 minutes upon arrival that Jeff was hooked up on fly to a nice 70lb fish. This was only the beginning, from 8am-1pm we proceeded to put land 3 fish on fly and 3 on baitbusters. We lost 10 Calcutta swim baits, 8 baitbusters and broke two fly lines. All said and done hooked over 20 fish and had 4 double headers. We left the biting and nothing left to throw at them. Thrursday I had Dave Tepper on the boat to film the carnage,Todd took his boat with Jeff again on board. They both caught fish to 90lbs on fly I lost three on fly and one on a baitbuster. Today was more about the filming than fishing, Dave got some great footage of tarpon eating bait 5ft from the boat. Friday I had Rich and Donnie on the boat at 630am. We were loaded with pilchards, ladyfish and swim baits. Donnie started it off with a beautiful 90lb fish on a ladyfish. We lost three more on ladyfish and then the tarpon went nuts on bait pods. We hooked 8 tarpon in less than 1.5hrs on pilchards and swim baits. We didnt land any but they got to see somegreat jumps and the fish were right off the bow. The wind picked up early and we messed with the mackeral and sharks before heading back to the dock. I was to busy to get any pics but my good friends Rick and Dave were down shooting pics from Ft Myers. They do great work and got amzing pics

Naples Tarpon Fishing 10/3-10/4

I fished a great client Pierre on Saturday morning and we started out with some early morning tarpon fishing. The fish were all over the place and we threw flies, baitbusters and live mullet without a bite. We had one shark cut us off and finally got a good fish on and it turned out to be a 5ft blacktip shark. We made are way out to get some nice pilchards and went into the backwaters and the action was good. We managed some nice snook, jacks and few nice redfish.
Today I had a great angler Jim from Tampa for an early morning oftarpon fishing. He is a tarpon finantic and today was great. We fished live ladyfish early before the sun came up. The tarpon were thick and eating good unlike yesterday morning. We put out two live ladyfish and cast baitbusters at rolling and free jumping fish. Jim got a nice big trout to start and then we hooked four tarpon over a 100lbs landing one about 120lbs. We got pilchards and headed for the backwaters to see if we could finish a Grand Slam,tarpon, snook, redfish and trout in the same day. We got plenty of snook, but couldnt buy a redfish unllike my last few trips. A great two days of fishing in Naples.

Sept 29, 2009

Today I had Jen And John for a full day of backwater fishing. We had great weather and the fishing was pretty good. The only negative was we didnt see any tarpon and all the pilchards are very small, 1-2in max. I had to fish these baits with a popping cork just to cast them. We managed 3 nice redfish, snook, ladyfish, jacks and snapper. The redfish are really beginning to show up in all the back bays. The tides are going to be great this weekend through next week, tarpon should be showing up on the early morning outgoing tides.