May 2022 Hello fellow anglers! The offshore fishing should be great there should be some nice red grouper , lanes , and mangrove snapper in the 70 to 100 foot range. Some guys like to drift fish for the red grouper it works, back in the day that is how we caught red grouper. I was fishing with some friends from Cape Coral and we never marked any spots. Back then it was mostly Loran. On the boat we used there was a depth finder and that was it. We would build our own marking jug, using a yellow prestone antifreeze bottle with some dive weights and 70 feet of line where we fished was in 65 ft. of water. As we would drift catching grouper when two of us hooked up at the same time we would throw the jug reel in our catch and pull back in front of the buoy and anchor over the spot and fish till they quit biting. Back in the day. With all the fancy electronics today it is a challenge to find some good spots that shallow. Also closer to shore in the 30 to 60 ft. range permit on the artificial reefs and cudas. Yes I eat cudas my rule is if it is longer than your arm it will do you harm. They eat small fish that may eat corals that make them toxic when they get big. I believe it is call ciguatera. When I lived in St. Croix the locals would lay the cuda on a aunt pile if the ants did not eat it they did not ether. There may be a few spanish around migrating to the North. King could show up where there large bait ball for them to eat. As the cold fronts slow and it is possible to get deep check the wrecks and artificial reefs for blackfin tuna , maybe some sail fish too. And in our own back yard the end of May is when the large schools of tarpon come to the local passes. Boca Grande is billed as the TARPON capitol of the World. May , June , and July are typically the most productive months of the year. Tarpon are here year round . The ones that migrate here are feeding up to go spawn in the gulf after they fatten up. Boca is like a feeding funnel it is a mile wide and most of the water in Charlotte Harbor flows through it. The harbor is a nursery to many species and they get pushed and pulled by the tides through the pass. Crabs several species , shrimp, pin fish, sand perch/squirrel fish just to name a few. Some of the Good Old Boys from Boca only live bait fish and they have some baits that some would not thought of using. So lets talk about close to shore and inshore. Snook should start there transition from there home out to saltier water where they can spawn. While I was teaching the Don Ball school of fishing I got to meet the local snook scientist. He explained to me how this works. The snook that live in the rivers have to migrate where the salinity is high enough for them to spawn successfully. And the ones from the Harbor migrate to the beaches. And the snook that usually are around the barrier islands go out to the close reefs. In the past I was SCUBA diving with my son at the barge and crane reef and it was loaded with big breeder snook. So until they open the snook season it is catch and release. Check the FWC fish rules app. for the most current information.
Oh and if you are one of those that like to battle with big bad fish the sharks , big sharks show up when there favorite food comes to town Tarpon. Get your big rigs out and tune them up for a battle. I still have a bucket list item I want to stick a Tarpon on the 12 weight fly rod I bought a couple of years ago so there. I was on the Yankee Captain vessel out of the Stock Island I got my Queen snapper check in the box woo hoo. Any way if you would like to go along with Capt. Bart Marx call or e-mail me 941-979-6517 or captbart@alphaomegacharters.com Or if you would like me to come along on your boat for a training session to help shorten your learning curve if you are new to the area. I also have gift certificates for gifts to those maybe up north that come and would like to fish while they are here. So always remember Singing drags and tight lines make me smile. <*(((((>{