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, Lady Fish, Trout, Catfish, Mangrove Snapper, Whiting
High Tide: 9:00 PM 1.6 FT Low Tide: 5:30 AM -0.2 FT Wind: 5-10 W Air Temp: 41/72 Water Temp: Clarity: dark
The weather warmed again for the week that Tommy and Arlene came down from Connecticut. Glad it cooperated for them, seems like we need visitors to get our near normal Florida sun and warmth. It's been cold. But we got 2 trips out this week, I'll tell you mostly about Monday because we caught a lot of fish. In two trips we used up nearly 8 dozen shrimp, which I got from Gump's Bait & Tackle in El Jobean, Florida.
We had a great lasagna dinner on Sunday evening at Mabel & Joe's, Tommy's folks. So good that when I got home Sunday night I fell into bed completely forgetting that I needed to take the boat off the lift if we were going to get out early on Monday. So Monday morning we waited around until 11:00 AM for the tide to rise and float my boat.
The fishing started slowly, we went down to the end of the canal first and found not much going on. So we quickly moved to a deeper hole I know of and started catching fish right away. Mostly there were small mangrove snapper and sheepshead. We fed them a lot of shrimp. Tommy seemed to have a handle on catching those little bait thieves, he's a very animated fisherman.
Arlene was mostly frustrated with the little devils. She was afraid of using up all the shrimp without getting fish in the boat and then going hungry at supper time. We would have fed her anyway. But I eventually switched her to a New Penny Gulp Shrimp on a lead head and she got a nice nearly 16 inch trout. Enough for her supper, that took the pressure off. Tommy added some mangrove snapper and one 13 inch sheepshead to the fish fry and I found a hole that was producing a lot of small trout and some very nice whiting from 9-13 inches. We kept a couple of the bigger ones.
On Wednesday the action was much slower, we fed a lot of little fish but got very few in the boat. Tommy got a couple nice mangrove snapper and that was all we put in the cooler.
As usual we had a great time with good company, sunny warm weather on the water in southwest Florida. Catching fish is just a bonus, Arlene. Are you and Tommy still showing off your sunburns? Or are you still all bundled up or maybe even swimming with the weather you've had. Anyway, looking forward to your next visit, you all made our day on the water wonderfully interesting.
