by Capt. Billy Norris
Fishing this month continues to be fantastic! The backwater is producing some quality snook, big jacks, and redfish. Winter time is over, so most of the sheepshead, besides the residential ones, have moved out. This is the time of year where catching whitebait will drastically improve your fishing day. Seatrout are still pretty rare in the Estero Bay and Bonita Springs areas due to last year’s red tide nearly wiping them out. If you do catch seatrout, releasing them is highly encouraged. The weather has been great, except for a few days with high winds. That being the case, the primary focus has been on the offshore game.
Offshore fishing has been stellar. The kingfish bite has been one of the best I’ve seen in many years. We’ve been consistently landing fish from the 25 to 50-pound range. Big whitebaits, threads, or blue runners are the bait of choice. Every once in a while you can get them to eat giant shrimp, but catching your own live bait will greatly increase the amount of strikes. In addition to kingfish there have been plentiful amounts of Spanish mackerel and bonitos around. Following all of these pelagics, not-messing-around-size sharks have been keeping drags screaming. Big hammerheads, tigers, bulls and blacktips are everywhere. As far as reef fishing, the near shore reefs are still recovering from last year’s red tide. The snapper bite has been pretty poor and grouper in close is pretty much out of the question. However, there have been tons of grunts which make for great table fare. Right now we are starting into the transition between spring and summer, where the fishing will continue to get more spectacular each day and the traffic will die down as we approach the summertime months…Thank God. The fishing is fantastic so get out there and catch ‘em up!
