Capt. Dave Stephens
The people that know me well, know I love fishing the north end of Charlotte Harbor and the Peace River. You might have even heard the term river rat a few times. Well I guess when you grow up in an area, home is where your heart is. I’m often asked, “How far up river do the snook and tarpon go”? My reply is normally simple, “As far as they want”. What most people don’t understand is, snook and tarpon can live in conditions with zero salinity. On most of my charters I use live bait. The bait that I choose to use is scaled sardines, AKA white bait or pilchards. Well, these guys do require a certain amount of salinity. The easiest way I can tell someone how far you can go is taste the water. I often taste the water when I get to an area. If you can taste salt, you should be ok. A incoming tide will bring more salt up the river and the opposite on an outgoing. The number one thing that makes the river non-fishable with live sardines is rain. During the summer when we begin to get our summer rain more fresh water will be pushing down the river. I often try to explain to people it’s not so much of the rain we get here, but north of us. The Peace River begins at Lake Hancock, and flows through several counties. I have seen years that if we have a low rain fall the mouth of the river will have salt. If you are an artificial lure fisher-person and feel adventurous, take a ride up past the Navigator. You might get lucky and get a Peace River slam; a snook, tarpon and a largemouth bass. Over the years I have caught some fish up that way that just make you scratch your head. I was on a charter about two weeks ago when I had one of those moments. I was fishing a shallow mangrove shoreline that produces some really nice snook and reds on a high tide. One of my clients hooked on what I assumed was a snook, since we had caught 6-8 already. All of a sudden, this thing, we’re going to call it “the thing” because we never seen it, ran out in the middle almost spooling him! We cranked the drag down, got “the thing” to turn. All of the sudden it started coming in very easily. When he got it to the boat, he had a 24” remora! I told him there is no way that fish was pulling like that. I’ve caught sawfish in this area in the past on a couple occasions. For the people that don’t know remora, they have a suction cup on top of their heads. They will hitch a ride on larger predator fish and feed on their scraps. I find it amazing how you never know what the day is going to bring when you set out for a day of fishing in Charlotte Harbor.
If you would like to experience some of Charlotte Harbor’s finest fishing give me a call or send me an email. All of our charters are private and customized to fit you and your party’s needs.
