Windy Days are Often the Best Days

Fishing conditions in Southwest Florida changed almost daily over the past week. We had it all, sunny perfect days with little to no breeze, very windy days with small craft warnings, all day rain days, warm and humid days and cool days. You can sure tell winter is fast approaching.

This snook measured twenty-nine inches and was invited to dinner just before season closed

With both snook and trout season now closed, the focus has turned to redfish on the flats. We are catching them but not in great numbers, all the reds over the past week come from Matlacha Pass. We caught several on one day around oyster bars in the northern Pass on the falling tide. Most were small but we did manage one better fish at around twenty-three inches. These were all caught on free-lined shiners on a small circle hook.

Trout are running big and plentiful, a good sign of things to come next month
We are catching the trout primarily around oyster bars and also a few big bluefish and an occasional snook or flounder.

We found this mid-slot red around an oyster bar in Matlacha Pass

Our best redfish day and best day of the week for that manner came on the windiest day of the week. I really like fishing the wind and concentrating on shorelines and Islands where the wind and current are pushing into the shore. After a slow start and a couple moves we hit the jackpot and had a great red bite for better than a half hour. There were several double hook-ups with fish ranging in size from twenty-two to twenty-eight inches. Live pinfish from three to five inches were the bait of the day and free lined or under a bobber both worked great. The bite didn't slow it just stopped completely, but that was OK, it was late in the afternoon and time to head home anyway.

For charter information contact us at (239)283-7960 or www.fishpineisland.com."Catch the Action" with Captain Bill Russell