Fish Tales: Trout plentiful in area waters

By CATHY COTTRILL, Staff Writer

January 12, 2005

Balmy weather made for ideal fishing conditions last week, with anglers enjoying success with trout, grouper and snapper.

Fishbuster Charters' Capt. Dave Hanson fished over live bottom in 40 feet off Bonita Beach last Monday with Dave Carr and Chester Yanik, using live shrimp. They caught a keeper gag grouper at 25 inches, a 15-inch hogfish and 10 mangrove snapper to 15 inches. They released short gag and red grouper, a Spanish mackerel and one of the largest grunts Hanson has ever seen.

Tuesday, Hanson fished with the Chuck Nunon family in 43 feet off New Pass. They caught nine nice mangrove snapper to 181/2 inches, sheepshead to 17 inches, and released lots of porgies, gags to 21 inches, and red grouper to 18 inches.

Thursday, fishing in 43 feet west of New Pass with Rich and Katie Slagle and Dean Foxx, Hanson reported a nice variety of fish on live shrimp.

"We got three keeper gag grouper, two at 23 inches and one at 24 inches," he said. "We also caught mangrove snapper to 15 inches, three keeper sheepshead at 14, 15 and 17 inches, a 14-inch yellowtail and 13 keeper lane snapper. We released jolthead and whitebone porgies, red grouper to 19 inches and two hogfish, which were females."

Capt. Sam Arcure of Team Arcure Fishing Charters fished last weekend with Carol Young of Missouri and her longtime friend, Peggy Johnson, also of Missouri. It was Carol's birthday and the fish must have known that. With the weather feeling much like late spring, Arcure guided the women to Ding Darling area for sea trout and redfish.

"We started fishing with live shrimp on the bottom with a jig head and got some bites from the sea trout," said Arcure. "As we caught numerous shorts, we noticed that the shrimp kept getting smaller so we eventually changed over to an artificial Berkley Gulp shrimp. The sea trout and some flounder went crazy over that. The bite was on more frequently with the artificial shrimp so we used that almost exclusively until we almost ran out of them."

The incoming tide was strong and the bite stayed on until about 12:30. Young and Johnson each proved their abilities with casting and retrieving as they boated over a dozen sea trout along with several flounder. Most of the sea trout were in the 141/2 inch range until Young caught one very large 2 pound sea trout. Overall, it was a great day on the water and the weather behaved itself as well as the fish.

On Wednesday, Capt. Rob Modys guided Dave and Colleen Turotsy of Ohio to several dozen trout, of which the largest was 20 inches. They also got four nice sheepshead, a 20-inch redfish and a flounder near Chino Island. The trout were all caught on D.O.A. shrimp under popping corks and rest of the bag was caught using live shrimp on small bucktail jigs.

On Friday, Rob Modys took Jim Vanauken of Greenville, N.Y., fishing along the east side of Pine Island Sound. Using a combination of D.O.A. shrimp under Cajun Clacker corks along with live shrimp fished slowly on jigheads, they got redfish to 18 inches, 21 trout to 16 inches, several sheepshead and two flounder.

Capt. Chick Melfi of in Hot Pursuit Charters had a group of fisherman who were out for the first time ever in Southwest Florida: C.J. Shrank, wife B from White Plains, N.Y., and mother Marium from Brockport, N.Y. They really got into Sabiki bait fishing, catching pins, sardines and Spanish macks by the Sanibel Causeway. Then they started offshore, heading to the southeast from the lighthouse on dead calm waters.

"We anchored up about 20 miles off on some live bottom and immediately started catching grouper and snapper with live shrimp and pins, along with frozen sardines," said Melfi. "Three inexperienced fisherman on board who were very into their first experience had me jumping to keep everybody baited and unhooking fish. In no time, C.J. had a beauty, a 26-inch red grouper. The girls were fishing lighter rods but the fish didn't know, which led to several rock ups, along with some nice red grouper and keeper lane snapper. Everybody picked up on the program quick and I'm sure they will continue to improve as they go. They showed tons of enthusiasm and excitement, which I enjoyed being a part of."

Dean Hicks of Reels Inc. reports a nice 30-inch cobia release in Mullock Creek caught using a red and white Yozuri Crystal minnow.

Capt. David Dean, Frank Potucek and Tom Fitz report 27 gag and one red grouper caught trolling in 36 feet of water west of Captiva Pass using Mann's Stretch 25 lures, with purple being the color of choice.

Capt. Larry Hendricks, Shane Edgar and Eric Knudsen, fishing 25 miles west of Redfish Pass in 78 feet of water, nabbed four keeper grouper to 15 pounds. Moving over to Charlies Reef, they caught six large amberjack to 33 pounds.

Ron Woolery, Capt. Gary Colecchio and friend Johnny of Sarasota headed out to the shrimp boat fleet, where Gary bested a 12 pound bonito on fly tackle. The trio proceeded out to the Fantastico wreck and tangled with a bunch of amberjacks to 60 pounds.

Capt. Ron Kowalyk saw good action in the feeder creeks and canals of Matlacha, Estero Bay and Pine Island Sound last week, especially the Ding Darling. He saw lots of mixed-size snook. The biggies were skittish but could be hooked.

"Reds are ganged up in loose pods throughout the winter-over creeks," he said. "You just had to poke along the mangrove edges until you found a gang of fish. They're hot for shrimp, which is typical of the winter bite. Snapper, big sheepies and flounder were also on a chew. The trout have turned on with DOA Shrimp, rootbeer curlytail jigs and shrimp-and-cork rigs all taking a share. The best bites were in the potholes and dropoffs of the channels adjacent to deeper flats. There were some nice sightfishing opportunities in The Ding Darling, with snook, reds and sharks making up the bite."