I live in Port Charlotte, FL on a canal with access to the Myakka River near El Jobean, FL and Charlotte Harbor. I own a boat and I love to fish. I'm new to Florida so I'm learning a new kind of fishing and I thought a record of fish caught, weather, tides, etc. for each trip would help me to learn quicker. That record is what you'll find in my blog which I post as soon as I possibly can so check before you're going out, my success or failure might help make your trip more productive.
Fish Caught: Tarpon, Trout, Goliath Grouper, Mangrove Snapper
High Tide: 5:00 AM 2.3 FT Low Tide: 12:45 PM -0.2 FT Wind: 10-20 NE Air Temp: 73/90 Water Temp: 82 Clarity: avarage
We left the dock a little late, 7:25 AM. We went straight out to the bridge in El Jobean, Fl and anchored in our favorite spot. I put a white bait (I netted yesterday in a local canal) on my hook and cast it near the bridge piling. The bait were pretty big 2 to 4 inches so I went with no sinkers.
The bait was very lively and it kept trying to swim into the piling where I knew I'd get hung up and probably have to break the line. So I kept pulling him out and one time when I tried to pull him out he pulled back VERY hard. I set the hook and the fight was on. Whatever it was it was big, I couldn't bring it to the surface and after only 30 seconds or so it got off.
So I put another bait on, cast him in the same place and hooked it again. This time it seemed I had him hooked well and after a few minutes of hard fighting a 3 foot tarpon blasted into the air about 4 feet from the boat. Karen had been reading and didn't even know I'd hooked the 2nd fish, so when that fish exploded at the surface she nearly jumped off the other side of the boat. I fought him a little while longer until he finally spit the hook. Good thing because I'm not really equipped to bring a fish like that into the boat. I managed to hook tarpon 3 more times after that, once even on my Gulp Swimming Mullet. All were released in much the same way and a couple gave us the same thrill by dancing on top of the water.
Then the goliath grouper started eating my white bait. I got about 5 or 6 in the boat between 10 and 15 inches, soon released. Even at that size they are fun to catch on light tackle, a very strong fish. I also got a couple mangrove snapper on the smaller bait, but nothing big enough for dinner.
Then the action slowed and I started paying less attention to my drifting bait. The tide was running out fast so it ended up behind us where the water motion start to slow as it leaves the influence of the bridge. Half way through a retrieve of my Gulp that pole bent over.
I managed to grab it and not lose the fish, the first trout of the season. Unfortunately it was 14.75 inches which is a quarter inch too short. But the next one was almost 16 inches and they kept coming. I lost a few and got 2 keepers in the boat before I ran out of bait. I had about 30 bait which is way more than I've ever needed before.
I'd seen some flashing in the water during the morning so I decided to toss the cast net and see what I got. A net full of scaled sardines but the largest was less than 2 inches long. Awfully tiny but I put 3 at a time on my hook and continued catching trout. But by about 10:30 the wind started really picking up and once again we started dragging the anchor. I got tired of fighting with the wind so we headed home by about 11:00 AM. A great day of fishing!
