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 Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Fish Caught: Sheepshead, Snook, Catfish, Mangrove Snapper
High Tide: 5:00 AM 2.0 FT Low Tide: 1:15 PM -0.5 FT Wind: 5-10 NE Air Temp: 57/82 Water Temp: Clarity: murky
Finally the weather and work load matched up and we managed an afternoon of fishing. We left the dock about 10:30 AM and with a couple dozen shrimp from El Jobean Bait & Tackle. We'd heard there were sheepshead down by the seawalls at the end of our canal.
We stopped at several different holes and along the seawall and fed small mangrove snapper and catfish getting only a few small ones in the boat. There was a lot of action on one of the shallow points near a hole that was about 5 feet deep today. It was a very low tide so I was looking for deeper holes to be holding fish. I cast a red and white Heddon - Zara Puppy up near the action and enticed a nice little snook to take it. But he was very small and out of season anyway.
Then we anchored next to a dock that I know has a fairly deep hole under it. The tide was rushing out and that dragged our shrimp under the boat lift. And that's where the sheepshead were. For the next hour we pulled several in the boat and managed to get 2 over the 12 inch minimum size limit.
There were also plenty of small mangrove snapper and a few very small catfish so we were very busy for that hour and then the fish just turned off. We roamed around for a while throwing the popper and remaining shrimp here and there with very little action. We did see a couple manatee in the small lake that's off Jupiter Waterway.
We finally used up our shrimp and headed home to fix our sheepshead dinner, another wonderfully relaxing afternoon on the water.
