Sure Feels Like Spring in Southwest Florida

It’s still three week until its official, but it sure feels like spring has already arrived in southwest Florida. We are catching an increasing number of species around Pine Island and larger fish are moving in every day.

We found trout up to twenty-two inches over sand/grass patch bottom in three to five foot depths in northern Pine Island Sound, Spanish mackerel and small sharks were also mixed in.

A couple days with a strong southwest wind we fished Keys and Islands in mid Pine Island Sound and found plenty of action on redfish, although most are still running below the eighteen inch minimum we did manage a few keepers. Larger redfish and snook should come into the picture later this week with better tides.

We caught a couple nice pompano around Bokeelia and seen a steady increase in mackerel action in the Harbor. I am also beginning to see a few tarpon showing up in the Harbor and northern Sound and sharks up to six feet.

Most of our fish this past week were caught on live shrimp or shrimp artificials, we are making the transition to live bait as pilchards are arriving, but on many days shrimp was still the better bait.

Warm water equates to more and larger fish and that’s just what we are beginning to experience in our waters. Spring officially begins in about three weeks but we are on pace for an early start. Baitfish are beginning to arrive as are the large predator fish, let’s keep our fingers crossed that this trend continues.