By Capt. Larry Conley:
If you’re new to fishing out of the Fort Myers, Florida, area it can be very technical. It can also be very good.
Knowing water depths for a certain fish can help you. Grouper typically reside in the 70- to 120-foot depths, and it changes with the water temps and the time of year. Red snapper will be in depths of 140 feet or more. Lane snapper are great table fare and can be found in 40 to 50 feet or deeper. This year we’ve caught more and bigger lanes than I have seen in eight years.
Look for hard bottom areas; learn to use your sonar. If it works as you’re running it helps a lot. Watch your screen continuously as you get past 40 feet of water. I’m not going give out a bunch of numbers, but if you watch the sonar you’re going to find a lot of lane snapper in 45 to 65 feet of water. As you’re running out, watch for rocky ledges, as they will hold mangrove snapper, gag grouper and white grunts. If I spot a new area as I’m running, I’ll mark it on the GPS and label it “RO.” I’ll know it as a run over. If it looks really good, like a bunch of lanes, I sometimes label it “WOW.” That way I know to look for lanes on a future trip. As I get in 40 feet or so, I’ll watch the radar and sonar more than out in front of the boat, and that’s how I’ve found many new spots. I might not fish them for months out, and I’ll delete the ones that don’t produce.
As for bait, squid, threadfin and herring are the best and cheapest. Live shrimp work, but it’s one bite and the shrimp is gone, which adds up. Chum with cut threadfin. Cut them small, as you don’t want to fill the fish up. Just give them a taste to get them interested.
A few of the best spots I’ve found are “potholes.” I found them by going slowly from one spot to another, watching the bottom machine. In 74 feet of water, I saw the bottom drop just 2 feet and then come back up after 20 yards to form a pothole. I saw what looked like one fish. One more red grouper was more than I had at the time, so I anchored. It took a few minutes, but the bottom came alive and we caught 15 keeper red grouper! That pothole was one of the best places I ever found. So, I continued looking for places that seemed the same and found about a dozen of these potholes.
I keep records of the keepers for each spot on the GPS, and I can’t tell you enough how important those records are. When it gets tough, go to the high-numbered spots.
Capt. Larry Conley and Reel-Ality Sportfishing offers inshore, offshore, and deep-sea fishing out of Fort Myers. The Reel-Ality offers various trips as well as tournament charters and is licensed to carry up to 6 passengers. Call 239-980-3880, visit www.reelalitysportfishing.com/contact.html, and check them out on Facebook.