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: Sheepshead, Snook, Lady Fish, Mangrove Snapper
High Tide: 5:00 AM 2.5 FT Low Tide: 2:00 PM -0.25 FT Wind: 5-10 NW Air Temp: 66/88 Water Temp: 81 Clarity: normal
We had a little cool front come through overnight. It turned the afternoon into a spectacular warm sunny but not too humid day. So we had lunch packed up the boat and headed down the canal.
I didn't go out for shrimp so I took a bag of menhaden out of the freezer, some extras I had from a preivious trip. When we got down to the end of the canal I could see bait up in the shallows being chased by something small. So I poled up there and threw my cast net over them. I got a few smallish silver jennys, some striped mojara, better than frozen and a couple sheepshead, which of course I let go. The water was very shallow and still going out so we went out were there's a little deeper channel and anchored for a while. I had something pretty good sized pick up a frozen menhaden, but I lost it.
When the tide started going slack, around 1:45 we moved over by the docks to drift under them on the incoming tide. As soon as the tide turned in the water came alive. Something was chasing the bait around under the dock and up the shoreline. I got a couple mangrove snapper on my live bait and fed a few with my frozen bait. The Gulp swimming mullet did nothing at all so I started changing lures. I threw a blue Rapala swimmer, some smaller silver swimmers and finally put on a Heddon Zara Puppy, topwater. That hit the water and I let it sit still for about 15 seconds to get a little closer to the dock. As soon as I twitched it just a couple times a streak came out from under the dock and smashed it. It was a small snook, real small, about a foot long. A got another similar and missed a couple and then a small ladyfish.
I put the ladyfish on a big hook and tossed it back in. It swam around for a while as I tried to coax it into a deep hole I know of under the dock. Well it finally swam down where I wanted it and it suddenly felt much bigger than a tiny ladyfish. I tightened my line and it started moving out from under the dock and up along the edge. I gave it some time to get that ladyfish swallowed and then set the hook. Whatever it was turned directly under the dock and around the far piling and hooked me up solid. I held the line tight for a while then let it slack. When I put tension on the line again it came free and I got back one dead and beaten ladyfish. Most of the scales were gone from its back and it was kind of crunched up.
That was the excitement for another beautiful day on the water. We were back at the dock by about 5:00 pm.
