Tarpon
Beginning in April, tarpon begin their migration up the coast out of the keys and work their way towards Boca Grande Pass. At that time, I’ll start looking for some early arrivals in Pine Island Sound in hopes of finding them laid up in the sand holes off Demere Key on the eastern side of the sound. This is a good bet if the water temperature hits 75 degrees. In May, I head toward the beach and like staking out off Murdock Point just off Cayo Costa on the southern edge of Boca Grande Pass. Here, throughout the day, it’s not unusual to get shots at strings of fish moving north. This migration should go on through June.
More importantly, the upper harbor at its confluence with the Peace River outside Punta Gorda is proving to be a great fishery for small tarpon. From April to November fish from five to thirty pounds can be seen rolling from the U.S. 41 Bridge to the perimeter canals of Punta Gorda and west past Colony Point towards Ponce Park. To the west, Larger fish from 50 to 80 pounds can be found in the harbors’ deeper holes.
July 2022
After waiting for like what seemed forever for our water temperatures to reach the upper 70’s anticipating tarpon season, it may or may not be hard to believe that May and June have past. Now, the wind should lie down and the air and water temperature will rise. There...
Low tide stewardship
The new moon today, November 4th, brought us some of the lowest tides we've seen in quite a while. Moreover, as we get ready for the second cold front to push through this season it looks like there’s more to come and it’s time to get ready to work this unique winter...
A sign of things to come
Well it’s not even a real cold front, but at least for a couple of days the weather that just pushed through has given us a reminder of what’s to come. Specifically, it’s brought a couple cooler mornings and some definite wind. From this, it’s the wind that got my...