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.
Fishing Myakka River/Charlotte Harbor, Florida Sunday, November 25, 2007
Fish Caught: Trout, Snook, Sail Cat
High Tide: 2:00 AM 2.5 FT Low Tide: 10:45 AM -0.75 FT Wind: 5-10 E Air Temp: 60/84 Water Temp: 72 Clarity: not clear
I still had sardines left from last week and this week we have nearly a full moon and a tide change at around 10:45 AM. And the tide was a huge 3.25 feet difference. I hoped that would work to get some snook hitting at the El Jobean bridge.
We left the dock about 9;00 AM and went straight out to the El Jobean bridge and got anchored in my favorite spot. Not much was happening with the live sardines but I was catching trout on my Gulp Swimming Mullet. I bought the new Berkley Gulp! Alive! 4" Swimming Mullet in a bucket from FishUSA.com, the only place I could find it in a bucket. The bucket comes with a lot of extra juice so you can put used baits back in the bucket to get refreshed, its very convenient.
Finally the time came when the rushing tide began to slow. I was throwing the Gulp Mullet up by the bridge and got a hard slam. It was a very nice 25 inch snook. Of course it has to be between 28 and 33 inches (pinched tail) to keep so over the side it went.
As the tide turned in I switched back to my live bait and after only 10 or so drifts into the bridge the bait got slammed. I new it was big and near the bridge but I couldn't keep it out of the pilings. At one point I could no longer feel the fish, I had a good hold of the bridge though. I held steady hoping that snook would change his mind and swim out and I was pleasantly surprised when she did. Karen and I managed to get that monster into the net and into the boat.
28.5 inches, a keeper. I unhooked her and threw her into the cooler already thinking about dinner tonight. I checked my 30lb Ande Pink mono leader and found it very frayed. I grabbed both ends in my hands and gave a gentle tug and it broke in half, how did it hold to get that fish in the net?
We fished a while longer until my last three bait were gone and then we headed home to dinner. Another great day on the water!
High Tide: 9:00 AM 1.5 FT Low Tide: 4:45 PM .25 FT Wind: 5-10 NE Air Temp: 53/79 Water Temp: 72 Clarity: not clear
We're tiling the floor in several rooms of our house. A tough job and today my Dad and I just couldn't do a full day so we quit for lunch and took off in the boat for the afternoon.
I got a net full of Sardines before we left so we headed straight out to the El Jobean bridge to catch the changing tide at 4:30 PM. We fished Berkley Gulp, live lined the sardines and even cut as cut bait. Nothing but beautiful warm weather. About 4:30 we had enough of sitting in the sun and decided to call it a day. I took one last cast with my Gulp, swimming it very slow on the bottom and finally managed to hook a tiny speckled trout. It was only about 8 inches long, tiny.
A very uneventful day of fishing but it was way better than another afternoon on our hands and knees tiling the floor!
High Tide: 3:00 PM 1.5 FT Low Tide: 8:30 AM 0.5 FT Wind: 5-10 NE Air Temp: 54/75 Water Temp: 76 Clarity: murky
I talked my neighbor, Bimini, into going out with me this morning. Not hard when you boat 3 snook and you're talking to a fanatic fisher person. So we left a little before 6:00 AM with a well full of sardines. It was a tough ride out because the fog was so thick we couldn't see more than a couple hundred yards. I cut the cable to my GPS antenna a while ago and haven't fixed it yet and I don't have a compass on board (I will soon) so we had to go by feeling. The fog was so thick there was no way to tell from which direction the sun was coming up the sky was just a dull gray glow all around. We got lost.
We finally found we could tell direction by the way the tide was moving and then we found a shoreline that was familiar and followed it to the El Jobean Bridge. There are 2 red nuns that mark the NW side of the bridge. They are about 100 feet from the bridge which stands about 30 feet high with mercury vapor street lights another 25 feet above that. We could not see the bridge nor the lights until we were about 20 feet from the nuns, that's how bad the fog was out there. Then it finally loomed out of the gloom and we both gasped, I think the people on the fishing pier thought we were crazy, maybe we are.
But we made it, got anchored and got some bait in the water. I got a 25 inch snook about 20 minutes later and missed a couple more. But that was it for snook. Such a difference from yesterday. I lost a lot of tails off my Gulp to small sand trout, they call them sugar trout here. I got a couple in the boat the largest was 12 inches. Many people would keep those to eat but I find it to be more work than they are worth unless they're a little bigger.
By 10:00 AM we were finally warmed up by the sun but bored with the fishing so we headed home.
Fish Caught: Snook, Trout, Sail Cat, Goliath Grouper
High Tide: 2:00 PM 1.5 FT Low Tide: 8:00 AM 0.5 FT Wind: 5-10 N Air Temp: 53/80 Water Temp: 76 Clarity: murky
I forgot about the time change, I really wanted to leave the dock in the dark but it was getting light already at 6:20 AM when I got underway. I went straight to the El Jobean bridge to catch the low tide turning in at 8:00 AM.
I had some very nice 4 inch sardines which I got in the water still with an outgoing tide that was pretty fast. It's hard to fish that in my favorite snook spot but I managed to get a bite on the 3rd cast, which I missed. But I managed a 23 inch snook a few casts later on my Gulp Swimming Mullet. I finally found the Swimming Mullet in Berkley's new bucket and I'm glad I did, they are much better when stored in all the extra juice. FishUSA has them and their shipping is cheaper than any other I've found. Click the banner below.
I went on to boat 2 more snook about 25 inches each and missed one other good strike, all on the live bait. I also got a 2 Goliath Grouper of average size for here about 10-12 inches and one trout about 12 inches. By this time I had positioned myself for the incoming tide and about 9:45 I threw out my last live bait. As it drifted with the tide up to the edge of the bridge I felt a nice heavy bump on the line and set the hook. It was big, there was a large swirl in the water as my pole doubled over and that big snook dove right back into the bridge pilings. I couldn't stop her so in another 15 seconds of battle I could feel the line scraping the barnacle covered cement until it finally cut. Another nice fish lost and no more bait.
As I looked around for bait I saw birds diving several hundred yards out so I headed that way. The bait was small, no good to me so I threw a gulp to see what was feeding on it. I caught 4 good sized sail cats in the next 20 minutes. I found you had to let the gulp hit the bottom very often to hook the them, but sail cats is not my favorite fish. Although I know a few people that love to eat them.
I decided to call it a day and come back again tomorrow.
High Tide: 11:00 AM 1.75 FT Low Tide: 7 PM 0.25 FT Wind: 10-20 N Air Temp: 57/79 Water Temp: 73 Clarity: clear
It was a chilly morning, we went from temperatures of 10 degrees above normal to 10 degrees below normal overnight. Friday morning we woke to 70 degrees and Saturday we're in the 50's. So we waited for the sun to rise and warm us a little before we left the dock at about 8:00 AM.
We went straight out to the El Jobean Bridge to one of my favorite snook spots when the tide is rising. As the boat came around the corner of the bridge piling I saw the remains of a large swirl in the water. It made me even more anxious to get a bait in there.
I finally found a new anchor at a tag sale last week, I bought a Fortress FX-11, The reason I mention it is I had a little trouble positioning the boat since the new anchor needs a little more line out than I'm used to and it takes a little more effort to get it set in the muddy bottom. So we weren't exactly where I wanted to be when I cast that first bait.
But not more than 10 seconds after my nice 4 inch sardine hit the water, I had a fish hooked. And it was a big fish which didn't want to swim into open water and I wasn't in the best position to argue the point. So after only 20 seconds of battle he took my hook and line into the cement pilings and wrapped it tight. I tried to just hold on and wait him out but shortly the fight left and all I could feel was tons of very still cement. I eventually had to break the line.
I'm sure it was a very nice snook and I'll go back for her perhaps on Tuesday morning when the tide will be low slack at 8:00 AM. Perfect.
The rest of the day was uneventful. Only a couple little bites probably from snapper but I never hooked one on the big baits I had. We tried some of the mangrove coves over by Tippecanoe Bay where it was more comfortable out of the wind, but no fish.
We got back to the dock by about 1:00 PM. Another pleasant day on the water.
Fish Caught: Snook, Lady Fish, Goliath Grouper, Catfish
High Tide: 6:45 PM 1.5 FT Low Tide: 11:45 AM -0.5 FT Wind: 5-10 NE Air Temp: 73/82 Water Temp: 76 Clarity: murky
Left the dock about 6:45 with a live well full of nice big sardines I netted from a local canal yesterday. We went straight out to the El Jobean bridge with the intent of anchoring on the West side of the bridge so we could drift our bait under the old section of bridge. But the tide was so fast I was worried about the anchor pulling free and crashing into the bridge before I could react, so we went around the other Charlotte Harbor side.
Hard to fish with the tide racing at you but I was casting up under the bridge and letting my bait drift along the pilings. When I could keep from snagging the bottom I usually managed a Goliath grouper and caught about 4 or 5 the biggest was about 20 inches or so. Nice fish, strong fighters, they don't like coming up from the bottom and they let you know it. Karen was letting her line drift out and sit and she was catching an occasional cat fish.
I also managed to boat a snook about 23 inches long on one drift. At this time the tide was slowing a little so this one snook was a good sign of things to come. As the tide went slack I repositioned the boat to fish my snook spot on an incoming tide.
Once the tide turned in with a little force I started hooking snook. I got 2 more one going to just under legal at 27 inches. And then finally a keeper at 29 inches. Remember our slot limit is over 28 and under 33 inches with a pinched tail.
It was about 1:30 PM when I landed that keeper and since we'd left in the dark it was already a long day so we left them biting. A great day when you can hit that tiny slot limit and bring home a nice fish dinner!
We cooked the whole snook on the grill. I make a foil tray and seasoned it with salt, pepper, garlic and spritz it with lime, lemon or grapefruit juice. I cut rosemarry from our plant and place the branches on the flavor bar in the grill just before putting the fish on. It adds that smokey flavor missing from most gas grill cooked foods. We sliced an eggplant from the garden and brushed it with olive oil and lime juice and put it in the smokey grill too. Topped with a salad of arugula from the garden, it was delicious and we had leftovers for lunch.
