Naples & Marco Island

New Report Mid May Naples to Marco island.

Fishing is holding true to form for mid may From Naples to Marco and into the Everglades Creeks.  Snook fishing is certainly gaining strength on fly and on bait and artificial.  Tarpon are showing along the beaches with more frequency getting easier to find and catch.  The Redfish are getting a little more scarce but as you can see from the picture they are still about, scattered from the back to the front. 

I do not know how the fish know but it seems the slot Snook know it is out of season and are willing to bite.  Every trip this past week we have been boating nice sized slot fish on both fly and bait.  On fly it seems that smaller white bait patterns tied with synthetics have been producing on the outside and in the lights and darker muddlers like black and Purple or Red have been getting them in the back country Creeks.  A few Tarpon are hitting the flies in the creeks as well as an occasional Redfish.  Fished a creek deep in the Glades last week and caught 3 Tarpon to 25 lbs. and a Big 38 inch Snook and a good number of smaller Snook in mostly fresh water.  So when I say the fish are any where from the backs of Creeks to the beaches take that as gospel. 

Bait fishing has been producing good numbers of fish, mostly on the outside, but some nice ones in the creeks too.  Catching bait has been a little interesting with the onshore winds out of the south west.  Most of the bait I am catching has been on the near shore wrecks off of Naples and Marco.  It is a little tricky getting out to them in three foot seas but worth it to fill the live well with nice White bait.  I hope these fronts stop soon I am kind of tired of fighting these winds everyday.  If you catch bait then finding fish to eat them hasn’t been a problem.  The Tarpon are running the beaches from Marco north to Boca Grande, just been a little rough to fish them the last few days.  Early  last week we jumped as many as six to eight per day.  If the winds let up then we will be back in business again.    Snook are hitting on almost all the points inside from the back to the front.  They are starting to feed up for the spawn.  Reds are scattered but catchable.  We have been averaging 2 or 3 per trip also from the outside to the backs of the creeks.

The next couple of weeks I expect continued strengthening for the fishing and continues success for Snook and Tarpon anglers.  I understand there is another front coming for memorial day weekend, maybe after that we can arrange for some better East winds rather then this South Westerly baloney that we have now.    Good luck and Good Fishing.  Rz.

Pic of Mark and Frank catching some big and small fish in the back of a Naples Creek.  The red was 34 inches long and the Snook much smaller.