By: Capt. Bart Marx
August in Southwest Florida and things are heating up. By now most of the large schools
of the migrating tarpon have gone into the Gulf of America to spawn, even though we do have resident tarpon that go up into the estuaries looking for food. They can be targeted and are more aware of their surroundings, however, there should be a great mangrove snapper bite. Snook should be starting to return to their natural habitat after their spawning time and they will be on the move and looking for food to get back into shape. There should be some trout action on the outside of the bars in 4 ft. or more of water. It is a little cooler in the deeper waters as compared to up on the bar and closer to the Gulf where there is plenty of grass beds. These grass beds hold pinfish and will form into large schools and go on the attack. If you are on the water enough to find some of these schools you can cast most anything that gets their attention. Soft plastics spoons live whitebait if you know how to get some. If you throw the net this is the time of year you throw your ten-foot or your ten-foot three eights bait net. Don’t get too greedy with the heat there is less oxygen in the water, so limit the amount of bait in your well. But be sure to get plenty so you can have enough to catch and release reds. A few years back I did this and caught a red on a pinfish and thought well that was too easy and grabbed my nine-weight fly rod and caught two twenty-eight reds in less than twenty minutes. There were five other boats fishing the same school and there were five of us hooked up at the same time, what a great memory. Getting further out into the Gulf of America there should be some nice mangrove snapper hungry and ready for a ride home for fish fry. They should be in the depths from 50-100 feet of water. They mostly like natural structure but can be caught on artificial reefs if you know how to draw them away from the goliath grouper, and some of the 100 ft. artificial reefs should be holding some nice yellow tail snapper. Out in the 100 ft. range plus, you can find some nice red grouper hanging around hard bottom and small ledges. Back closer to shore in the 40-60 foot range the lane snapper are a good target for a fish fry!
If you would like to come along with Capt. Bart, give me a call at 941-979-6517 or e-mail me at captbart@alphaomegacharters.com, and if you are new to the area and have a boat and need some training as to where you can take your boat and how to use some of the tackle you
already have, I am more than happy to show you.