I'm planning a Florida trip sometime in March and was looking for a little advice. I'd like to find a place (west coast) that would be my best bet for Tarpon, Jacks, and snook. We are planning to get a guide, but I would like to have the option of wading. Last year we fished in Chokolosskee. Great fishing, but you really have to fish with a guide if you don't know tha area. Any help would great. Thanks

Where are you going? I am heading to Naples towards the end of March. I perusing the charters out of Marco Island now...

Trying to figure out what to do. So I'll take any advice on charters if anyone's got any...

thanks
BN

We chartered out of Marco last Feb. A little to early for Tarpon. We chartered Blackwater Charters and he was great. Very professional and we caught fish! I think he has a web site, if not let me know maybe I can find the #

The best area that I've fished on the West Coast is the Ft Myers area around Sanibel and Captiva Islands - redfish, snook and specks.

LOTS of opportunities for shore based fishing like the Sanibel Pier near the lighthouse (free and easy access), Lover's Key (you can park by the side of the road in a designated area just past the bridge and wade across to it, or just wade the flats on the left befoe you get on the Sanibel Toll Bridge - there's also the Ding Darling Nat'l Preserve just up the road a piece in the early AM.

Then there's Blind Pass, which is the cut between Sanibel and Captiva (where Mike Laptew told me he saw large schools of big snook just hanging out in the current in the backwater while snorkeling with his wife) and a billion places nearby with small creeks, cuts, canals, etc - the whole Estero Bay area and Pine Island Sound is pretty hot, it'll look pretty fishy the very first time you see it.

If you decide on Sanibel, just get some nice live shrimp at The Bait Box on the Island, pay the guy extra for handpicking the better (bigger) ones for ya, and get some of Capt. Hank Brown's Hook-Up jigs to pin 'em on.

You fish the drop at the end of the Sanibel Pier with the shrimp & Hook-Up jig or a 3/4 oz. bullethead jig tipped with a red porkrind at sunset into dark reeling sloooowly just above the bottom (geez, is any of this starting to sound familiar to ya yet?) for snook - if the water temp is above 70 - that's the turn-on temp for them.

You can also try liveling pinfish, too, pick up a bait bucket with an aerator so you don't end up with a bucket of expensive floaters after getting stuck in the heat in the brutal Sanibel/Ft Meyers traffic. It's especially heavy in March, too.

Other than that, start buying Florida Sportsman every month, read it cover to cover if you haven't fished the west coast before and see if you can find their annual Trout and Redfish issue still on the newstands.

Oh yeah, and almost all those places have soft sandy beaches and great shelling (best in the U.S.) to keep the Mrs or significant other occupied while you fish.

A charter is certainly the surer way to go but I'd say save the money for beer and shrimp (yeah, you can eat your bait if you have any left) :cheers: if you don't mind a little homework before you go and a litle exploring when you get there.

All we expect is some happy photos posted and a coupla good was stories. Damn, wish it was me, I'm gettin' all lathered up just thinkin' about it.

Good luck, have fun :D.

Yeah, little early for tarpon unless you were headed to the keys. My folks live in Sarasota for the snowbird season. Jacks can be anywhere, kinda like blues are. No real pattern to where they will be, their everywhere. I always have my best luck with them at dawn in moving water like a pass or the ICW between Longboat key and Venice Inlet. If you want snook head to Snook Alley. It's part of the ICW, just north of Venice Inlet where it gets real narrow with a couple bridges. Good night bite there. The thing to do is fish near the lights of the bridges. I think basically that time of year you want to stay inside with the warmer water. Anywhere Tampa and south will probably be good. I love the area between Longboat key and Venice though.

My first thought was the keys. Are there areas in the keys that can be waded, or any beach fishing (day and night)?

Might be early for big tarpon, but we'll see what happens when I get there.

I did go to Key West last September and had a blast on the trip we took with, Dreamweaver charters, nice day of sizable dolphin (the biggest was 41" and we caught about 15 fish) as well as a 37" wahoo.

Mrs. Bass Nut has informed me that we will also be visiting her aunt and uncle near Orlando, he does does alot of freshwater fishing, maybe i'll get out with him. Maybe.

Think I might have to take a wreck trip and try for one o' them there goliath grouper....

Spend the rest of the days wandering the beaches and flats.

Pictures will be posted.

BN

If you are doing a guided trip, those guys are usually pretty generous with some info for a customer. Book the trip and ask him if he knows any general areas you might wade for a few hours on some other days... I'd bet they'd give you some spots. Just be tactful... and give him a nice tip.

I go out with a guide on the Indian River (ICW - east coast) and he's offered to show me how to get to some areas to wade. I hadn't had time in prior years, but I'll probably take him up on it this year, since I'm going strictly to fish this year versus a family trip.

I'll be there in late March as well.

I know the tarpon run on the east coast is in May, though the baby tarpon (up to 50lbs) are earlier, possibly resident fish. Its mostly reds, trout, snook, jacks and spanish mackerel in March. I think the Gulf side is pretty similar.

I don't know about you guys, but my problem with tarpon is that we have fish up here in May. I want to go down there when its cold and crappy up here... something to get me through the winter. I guess I need to go further south.

Good luck guys.

You guys are forgetting one of the greatest gamesfish EVER. The Great Barracuda. Winter is the time, they head to shallow warm water. Along with sharks. The flats on the keys hold some monsters. If you can, take a guide out on the flats for cudas. The experience of watching a 30lb fish hit a topwater plug and run up to 30mph, under and all around the boat....on a light rod with 10lb line is an experience of a lifetime. Nevermind the fact that the flats will hold some monster sharks and rays which are great to watch. I had a lemon shark eat a 25lb cuda right after we released it.

As far as the Sanibel area, I just returned from there last week. The water was very cold. i saw no snook or other gamefish being caught.

There's plenty places up and down the keys to wade. It's about 2 1/2 hours from key largo to key west. Thats alot of water to wade. There's plenty places to pull off, especially in the middle keys. There are no actual beaches, as we know them, there. Its a matter of gettin through the mangroves to the water. Theres some decent areas around the bridges also. I wish I had gotten a guide though. I've spent lots of time there just figuring out where I can go and how to fish it, when I didn't have much time.

Looking at booking with sixchuter charters out of Marco Island, an offshore trip 6 hours at $550. doesnt seems too bad there will be two of us, so the price is not that bad.

Should be a good trip, tarpon, snook, grouper, permit. cant wait...

Anyone ever fished with them? opinions?

sixchutercharters.com for info.



thanks,
BN