Marco Island Fishing...If That's What They Call It?

I haven't blogged in a few weeks about my fishing trips with Chad. I just haven't been that motivated to do so. Fortunately, I really enjoy writing about the successes of fishing in Fort Myers, the good times we have, and I enjoy reaching out to everyone through this blog.
A few weeks ago, Me, Chad and Aren decided to go to Marco Island to try to catch some new fish and use new baits. We decided to once again leave early in the morning and start our fishing expedidition.
As we began to cross the bridge to get over to Marco Island, we realized there was construction on each side of the bridge on both sides. "This is where I usually catch all of the fish," Chad said. The frustrating fact is, Chad and I both checked online about anything that would mess up inshore fishing in Marco Island. Apparently, they don't update their log for the island and they were all saying the inshore fishing was excellent. So this ruled out fishing around the bridge for sheepshead and bottom feeding fish such as grouper.
Since there are really no public beaches in Marco Island because of the condo development, its impossible to inshore fish from the beaches unless you own a condo or property. So, as a last resort, we traveled back to a parking lot that ran alongside an inlet on one of the mangrove islands off of Marco. The tide was so strong, it was impossible for Chad to keep his shrimp sinking and me and Aren could not keep our lures from drifting sideways, thus creating unrealistic bait fish movement.
With some confusion of what to do, we decided to travel back to Big Carlos where we knew we were going to be able to catch something, and I knew for Arens' sake, she would never go fishing again if she didn't see a fish come out of the water from any of us.
It took about thirty minutes for the action to begin and we were off. Chad caught the first fish, but it was fighting different than a mackeral. He knew right off that it was either a stingray or a shark. Sure enough, a bonnet head shark, which looks similar to a hammerhead and is in the same family, came out of the water. I had to hand reel the shark up to the bridge so Chads pole did not snap from the weight of the catch. The picture of the shark is posted at the top of this blog.
Out of nowhere, I looked over at Aren when I heard her say, "What should I do." I knew she had a fish, but she was obviously not so sure. "Reel Aren, you have a mackeral." I have never seen a person so scared to catch a fish, but I think she was caught up in the excitement of catching her first saltwater fish. Sure enough, she caught her mackeral, posted above, with a chartreuse/blood red Gotcha plug. When we got the fish up to the bridge, it was a clean hook and it took nothing to get the hook out. She was so happy, as was I, that she caught at least one fish. It was an amazing day of fishing. We all caught a lot of mackeral and I could not have asked for a better experience for Aren.
This is a side topic from fishing, but even though Aren and I have broken up, we are still great friends and we both know that what happened was something that is better for us now and in the long run.

Slowly But Surely...

I got up on April 6th at 9:00 ready to go fishing and meet up with Chad at Big Carlos Pass around noon. He had to go to teach until 11:30.
When I got up, I ate a quick breakfast and submitted some of my assignments for school and got ready to go. My fishing tackle was already in the car, as always, so at 10:00, I left for the beach. I am always torn whether I should take highway 41 to Bonita Beach road or if I should travel to Big Carlos via Summerlin Road. Unfortunately, I decided to take Summerlin. This was a huge mistake. I finally got to the pass at 11:15. It took me one hour and 15 minutes to travel 10 miles.(Theres nothing worse than a snowbird on a two lane road!)
I unloaded all of my tackle and went onto the bridge. It was fairly crowded, but I headed to mine and Chad's lucky spot on the bridge. I threw out my never-fail gotcha plug and I had no hits. Then I changed to a chartreuse-blood red jig with no success. About 45 minutes later, I changed back to my plug hoping the tides had shifted the schools of baitfish and brought the mackeral closer to the shelter of the bridge. This thought sounds better on paper than what actually happened. I collected my stuff and began walking to the car to call Chad.
I got a hold of him; "Are you on your way yet?" "No, I'm eating lunch and I will be there in about 40 minutes" he said. "Nobody is catching anything, you may not want to waste your gas." He was emphatic about coming out anyway which gave me confidence that maybe we would have luck later on in the day. "I'll meet you at New Pass," he said. "We'll try the fishing there."
We got to New Pass, which is the bridge 2 miles east of San Carlos Pass. We chased some fiddler crabs for fun and tried to catch non-existent green backs. We spent about 30 minutes at New Pass, then Chad suggested we go back to Big Carlos. I am happy he talked me into going back with him. I had lost all faith in catching anything on this day.
We arrived to San Carlos Pass around 12:30. Nobody was at the bridge. Everyone that we talked to was giving up. Chad and I were pretty confident after the first few cast that the mackeral were still schooling.
Chad was using his sabiki rig and he had something. We could tell by his fishing rod action that it was not a mackeral; there was no fight. It was some sort of spiky box fish neither of us had ever seen. I thought it might be a puffer, but the fish wasn't puffing up and it was making very gutteral hissing sounds. It was pretty scary. Luckily it shook itself off the hook. (This fish is the spiky black and yellow fish pictured above.)
As the afternoon progressed, we started to catch on to the mackeral and I caught my biggest yet.(We had to walk it to the beach so it wouldn't break my rod, and Chad went an dehooked it.) It was probably 25 inches at the fork of the tail and weighed close to 7 pounds. (That was our estimation)-(The fork of the tail is the closest part of the tail to the body.)
Chad did well catching the mackeral also. I didn't get many pictures of him this trip, but he kept saying we would get a picture of the next one, and of course, we never did.
I left around 3 because I had to go home and get ready for work at 5:30. Chad stayed, but I have not talked to him in the last 24 hours to find if he had any luck after I left.
I think we are going to go to Marco Island this Friday, both of us are free, and I think Aren is going to come with us. I think we are going to go for mangrove snapper, mackeral, some snook(which we can't keep until later in the year), and whatever else bites our bait. There will definitely be a post for this trip, I just hope we catch a bunch of good stuff.

It's Not Faulty Equipment!

Now that I have gotten my feet wet and truly succeeded in saltwater fishing, I had to return as soon as possible to see if I could better improve my skills and make sure what happened on my last trip wasn't a hoax.

It was on a Wednesday night after a day of teaching that I began to think of what I wanted to do on Thursday, since the Lee County Public Schools were beginning their Spring Break and I did not have to teach. "I'll go fishing." But I knew I did not want to go by myself and then I remembered Chad did not have to do anything that Thursday. "Chad, you aren't doing anything tomorrow, are you?" "No, What's up?" "I'm going fishing tomorrow around 9 because I am going to get out there early and do some damage."(Considering we have only gone in the afternoon when the temperature is smoldering or freezing.) Chad was all for this idea. "I'll be at your house around 8:30 and we will head back to Big Carlos Bridge.

I woke up on April 1st at 7:45 ready to get to the bridge. I threw on a tank top and some board shorts, kissed Aren goodbye, and headed over to Chad's apartment. It felt like I hit every light green on the way to Chad's place. This time I had my own equipment and I was ready to prove I could do damage with my own tackle.

I walked up to Chad's door, and before I got to the living room, he said, "You ready to go catch some fish?" "Oh yeah, I've got a really good feeling about today."

As we drove down the interstate, we reflected on how well the plug worked a few days earlier. Now Chad was the one wanting to stop at K-Mart and pick up some "Sabiki" rigs. These rigs are a 4 foot long leader with 5 "branches" off of the main line with feathers and a hook attached to each "branch." The presentation looks like a school of fish and it is possible to catch more than one fish at a time on one rig. (Chad showed this off later on in the day.)We arrived at the bridge, and we were some of the first.

We picked our position about half way down the bridge just before the slight hump in the bridge. I was very non chalant on my first cast in that I did not expect to have luck for at least 30 minutes. I was talking to Chad when I casted my line. I worked the plug about 20 feet and BAM! I had the first Spanish Mackeral of the day in the first minute of the day. "Do you believe this?" Little did we know, this was the tone for the next 8 hours until I had to leave to be at work at 6 at Publix.

As the day progressed, more people showed up on the bridge, but not with the results we had. There was a point in the day for every five casts I would throw and Chad would throw, we caught four fish each. I am positive we were hated by the tourists and locals alike. We would take buckets to the cooler in my car and some people would give us the death stare because we were catching all of the fish. It was an absolutely amazing feeling to be on the opposite end of the spectrum than my usual results.

I would love to tell about every fish that we caught and the ridiculous runs we had catching Spanish Mackeral, but this blog would take up half the internet.

We returned to Chads at 4:30 and I began to help him filet the 16 of the 50 fish that we kept.(48 of the 50 were keepers) The personal daily limit is 15 for spanich mackeral, but their were two of us, so we could have up to 30. The problem with that was we did not have enough freezer space for much more than the 16 and we couldn't get in touch with anyone that would tell us if they wanted some. (The 16 keepers are in the picture at the top of the page.)

I don't know when we are going to head back out, but with school wrapping up for the Spring and a free summer with no classes, we will be frequenting Big Carlos Bridge and searching for new hot spots and many different species.

The Illusive Catch

I have lived in Fort Myers nearly a year and a half and I haven't had any luck catching fish in these "Famous Gulf waters of Southwest Florida." But on Thursday, April 25th, when odds were against me, I had my first stroke of luck.

My friend Chad and I were wanting to go fishing, but we were busy working on a school project that was going on way to long. Fortunately we finished this project and decided it was probably a good day to head to Big Carlos Pass and test the waters. We decided he would drive and we would use his equipment in his car so we didn't have to move tackle from my car to his already crowded trunk.

As we were merging onto the interstate, I realized, I didn't have any of my artificial bait and I didn't want to lose Chad's; lures are disposable for me. I always seem to tie at least one faulty knot each trip we take. "We can use shrimp" Chad suggested. "Let's stop at K-Mart on the way and I am going to buy a lure to use" I responded. "You are determined to catch something on artificial bait, aren't you?" I emphatically responded "Hell yeah."

We eventually got to K-Mart and upon searching in the suprisingly well supplied fishing aisle, I found a highlighter yellow mid-water plug with a blood red head. "This is going to work" I said with somewhat of a sarcastic tone. My history of saltwater fishing did not make me very optimistic.

We stopped by New Pass, a bridge on the way to Big Carlos, but we had no luck, so we continued on to our intended destination. I tied on my lure and Chad tied on his shrimp rig and we began to walk up onto the bridge. "I am going to laugh if this thing works, the one lure I have with me!"

Cast upon cast, I was seeing fish chase my lure, but I had to figure out the proper presentation. About an hour and a half later at 3:30, I felt an unfamiliar feeling. My fishing pole began to vibrate and my drag, which was set way too low, began to click like a gear cog. "I got one" I yelled at the top of my lungs. As I tightened my drag, I was waiting for something to go wrong. Would this fish bite through my line? Do I have another stingray? Sure enough, I pulled a "real" fish out of the water up onto the bridge.

Catching this fish stopped Chad's speculation that I was bad luck to take fishing considering he always catches nice fish when I am not fishing with him. (I was secretly getting worried myself.)

As we put the fish in the cooler, we both thought it was hysterical that with a shot in the wind purchase of a lure that was not even a serious purchase, I caught my first saltwater fish. Now the challenge was to return and catch a fish on my own equipment.