Sarasota to Bonita Beach
Includes Siesta Key, Venice, Englewood, Boca Grande, Port Charlotte, Punta Gorda, Pine Island, Cape Coral, Captiva, Sanibel and Fort Myers.

Oct. 3-5

SW

Offshore: Slow again this week with wind and rain factors again. The crews just couldn’t get stirred-up enough to challenge the rough seas and comfortable hold over the hot spots. A few hearty souls ventured out to the close reefs and found scads of Spanish, a few short grouper, a trigger or two and even a big snook but generally it was a wash.

Sarasota-Englewood: Backbay bites were good with reds, snook, trout, snappers and sheepies cooperating. Bait could be tough but there are plenty of big shrimp and the fish are eating scented softbodies and cutbait. The passes held legal snook and oversized reds.

Port Charlotte: The big bay remained a tad rough this week but some crews braved the chop and crisscrossed the bay finding eager bites on the Western Wall, in Bull and Turtle bays and on the Burnt Store Bars. There was fair mixed bag action in the creeks and rivers of the northeast end. Gasparilla Sound offered some relief from the wind and plenty of features holding fish.

Ft. Myers: We had some of the best action of the year in Estero Bay on upper slot reds, numbers of mixed size snook, fat black drum, bigger than usual snapper and some nice sheepies. There were plenty of big shrimp, mullet and whitebait so crews had it easy for a change, more fishing on the strong early incoming tides. The afternoon was very good to.

There were legal snook taken in Big Carlos and New Pass with numbers of bull reds for company.

Up north the bite was hot to with snook and reds in the passes and at the mouth of the Caloosahatchee. Snook were also around the Cape Coral Bridge and in the Cape canals.

Pine Island Sound had good action on the west shore of the big island and active bites in the Ding.

The Sanibel Causeway and the bayside dock on Sanibel held good mixed bag biters, snook, grouper, snapper, sheepies, black drum, reds and trout.

Matlacha held it’s own and than some with double digit redfish and trout trips very possible.

Matanzas Pass had mixed bag action also.

Capt. Ron Kowalyk:

captronkow@aol.com

www.fishswfla.com

1-877-267-9312

By Capt. Ron Kowalyk | www.fishswfla.com | captronkow@aol.com | 1-877-267-9312

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