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Want to have some fishy fun? Take a kid or fishing newbie out to one of our river bridges and load a lite rod with a circle hook and half a small blue crab. Drop it close to the structure and wait. Tell them they’re fishing for 15-inch trout.
While waiting, have your camera ready for the reaction shot when a 45-pound, or larger, black drum with an always keen nose smells that crab, feels it with his chin whiskers, then finally inhales it and takes off leaving the surprised angler with an instant case of doubled over rod, screaming drag, wide eyed panic, as you snap that priceless photo.
Typically, large structure like bridges attract these spawning giants but sometimes you’ll find them gathered on shallow oyster bars feeding or doing the spawning dance.
Years ago while boating through Matlacha Pass, we spotted huge, broom-sized tails waving happily above the surface of a shallow bar. Of course, I’ve died and gone to jumbo redfish heaven were my first thoughts, as I slowed the boat.
It didn’t take long to realize that the shallow bar was covered in huge black drum and that I had no real bait to throw at them. Digging through my tackle a pack of GULP crabs appeared and saved the day. A split shot, a hook and the small fake crab were a hit as we caught several drum in the 30 to 40-pound range on lite rods.
Fly anglers can score well in this situation with nearly any crab/bottom critter imitator quickly vacuumed up.
Offshore and nearshore, mangrove snapper fishing is on and worth the trip if conditions are favorable. Depending on your GPS locations, other snappers, lane and yellowtail, are a possibility. The smaller boat angler can take advantage of this fishery as near shore reefs can hold lots of fish.
Spotted seatrout fishing has been very good in the Matlacha and Pine Island areas using ultra-lite spin and fly rod tackle. Any subsurface fly, minnow imitator works well.
As long as the warm weather continues, the small jigs and soft paddle tail plastics will do fine, but when winter sets in and the cold water slows everything, switching to a slower fished lure like the D.O.A. 2-inch shrimp or the scads of other shrimpy looking fakes becomes more effective.
Not a caster? Get out the popping corks and the live shrimp and drift the 3 to 6-foot flats and start popping. The first thing that new anglers always ask is, “How many times I pop it?” which is a good question, that I can’t honestly give a definitive answer to.
Typically, toss it out and let rest for a 5-10 count, give it a few good “bloops” and let rest for a 5 count. Experiment! When the float is tugged, the sound or bloop the float makes sounds like feeding fish and attracts friends to the feast and, yanks your shrimp towards the surface, then naturally it falls like its seeking cover on the rest between pulls, which usually trips the fish’s trigger.
To get a good sound from the float, point the rod at it, take up slack line and get a straight connection to the float and give it a sharp tug so the concave face of the float digs in creating that magic sound.
Spotted seatrout are closed to harvest but you can still enjoy the silver trout which school up in deeper water river haunts. I will admit to many years ago, after running out of live lady fish, to using a live silver trout to catch and release my personal best Caloosahatchee River tarpon.
Baked crab stuffed pompano was the Christmas dinner favorite this year and they are biting now in and around the passes.
Please call for information on guided trips or our two hour, total beginners, salt water fly fishing school.
Happy New Year!
Capt. George Tunison is a Cape Coral resident fishing guide. Contact him at 239-282-9434 or captgeorget3@aol.com.