Naples Florida Fishing

Archive for the ‘Fishing Report’ Category

The past weeks Naples fishing charters have been pretty typical for mid-summer. Lots of Snook, Snapper, Mackerel, as well as a few Tarpon, and Redfish thrown in. The stronger afternoon tide has been the better tide to go fishing this week.

Capt Pat and Tim Ovington

Tim Ovington and I were discussing some options for our fishing charter today, and decided we’d do some fly fishing this evening. We headed out on our fishing charter from Bayveiw Park at 7 P.M. for a 4 hour night trip, targeting the fish that were actively feeding in the vicinity of lights.

For fly fishing tackle we were using a 4 piece 8wt TFO fly rod with a weight forward floating line. For stealth fishing around the lights I had an 8 foot – 20lb fluorocarbon leader, with a fairly sparse “DT” fly tied on a #4 hook. It was interesting that the Snook would not hit any other size when we had to change flies.

Tim and I estimated he caught 25+ Snook. Those are just the ones that were brought to the boat. We had some monsters on that got away but provided us with “the one that got away stories.”

The water in Naples has been darker than normal because of the afternoon rain, but I think this has helped the overall fishing. A few nights back, while on another night fly fishing trip we also had great results.

See you on the water!
Captain Patrick Gould

Three hardy anglers from Boston and I braved the FL cold (to us, not them) and ventured out in search of anything that was willing to play. Our first stop was Gordon’s Pass, where we found the water to be too dirty an cold, so we moved about a mile inside to find warmer/cleaner protected fishing spots. Our first spot yielded Sheepshead and a few that slipped off the hook. We moved on to jigging for Trout, then decided to go back to fishing for Sheepshead.

This past week has seen some of the coldest weather ever in southwest Florida. I managed to fish three trips during the period and all of those were in the Naples bay area. The fish and the fisherman had to warm up a bit before things started to happen . We were using live shrimp on the bottom which actually produced good Sheephead action on all three trips. Small grouper, snapper and jacks were taking the baits very well considering the water temps were registering in the low 50’s on my Lowrance. The fish were deep in the holes at low tide but when the water came up we switched to artificial lures. We tried pot belly 1/8oz. white jigs then ended up with tube jigs. Working the lures very slowly we could see some trout and ladyfish following and not taking for a while until the afternoon when we actually began to do quite well. The biggest surprise of the week was the 8 to 9 Snook we caught on two of the trips once the water warmed a little. I was fishing more towards Marco Island in the Johnson Bay to Rookery Bay areas in the back bays and holes at low tide . When the water was high, I found myself working the hurricane pass area as well as along some Intercoastal waterway spots. No fly fishing this week. I think as the weather warms fly fishing will be a better bet especially for sight fishing .