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 Friday, April 11, 2008
Fish Caught: Mangrove Snapper, Stingray
High Tide: 7:30 PM 2.1 FT Low Tide: 3:45 AM -0.5 FT Wind: 5-10 NE Air Temp: 59/86 Water Temp: 74 Clarity: clear
The day was so beautiful we rushed around after lunch to get some time to spend on the water. One of the things I needed to do was net some bait, which I did but they were very small, the largest being only an inch long.
We left the dock about 2:30 PM, made a brief stop at the end of the canal to fish under the docks. But when I went to get a bait all my newly netted menhaden had died. I tossed a bunch in the water as chum and put a couple dead ones on a hook. But no luck, I'd really only expect catfish or rays on dead bait anyway. I also threw the Gulp around but no luck at all. After 15 minutes we turned towards the El Jobean bridge.
I started throwing the Gulp at the bridge and on a very slow retrieve I was getting hits. But after losing 3 tails off my swimming mullets I decided it wasn't worth the expense and I went over to get some shrimp by the boat launch.
When we got back to the bridge I started pulling up small mangrove snapper. Obviously the tail eaters I'd been feeding Gulp earlier. I probably caught 8-10 snapper over the next hour or so, most were not legal but a couple went to 10-11 inches. I didn't keep any I usually don't until they get over 12 inches.
I use 30 lb Berkley Fireline with a 2-3 ft. fluorocarbon leader. It gives you a really good feel for what is happening at the hook end of the line. I had a chance a few weeks ago to pick up a pole with 15 lb mono and it felt like I was fishing with a 3 lb weight on the end of a rubber band. The reason I say this is I had one hit, between all those snapper, that I really felt was a much larger fish. With Fireline a small fish is like a tinkling bell of an old phone, but a bigger fish is more of a thud...thud. And it doesn't matter if the moving tide has your line in a long arc, it still transmits that feel to your hands. But I didn't hook that one thudding fish, Karen will say "we'll never know", but I know and that's what matters.
About 5 o'clock I got tired of playing with snapper and we decided to head back to the canal, put some shrimp on the bottom and have our Subway dinner. Of course you can have bait out all day and never get a bite until you pick up your sandwich, I caught 4 stingray in the time it took me to eat my grinder. I don't enjoy unhooking stingray so once dinner was done we headed home. Another wonderful day on the water.
