Saturday, 5/28/11 … tough at Boca Grande but very good at Captiva Pass

We were back in in Boca Grande Pass for a good part of this morning.

Things continued to be slow.  The stronger the tides, the tougher the fishing in Boca Grande.

Tarpon fishing is somewhat counterintuitive to most of the other fishing we do.  Most of the fish we target are more active and easier to catch when they are feeding on a strong incoming or outgoing tide.  Snapper and tarpon are two of the few fish that bite great when the water is barely moving in the inlets.  Fishing for tarpon is generally most productive on nearly slack tides.

So when fishing for tarpon in Boca Grande Pass, it is easier to get bites with a slower tidal flow.  Today, the tide was not slow.  The current was strong at 1.7 knots around 8:30 AM.

This made for a slow Saturday with few bites for the lady’s professional tarpon tournament held today at Boca Grande.  Only a few of the approximately 150 pro anglers were able to hook up a tarpon and weigh a fish in.

My clients fought two nice tarpon this morning, but we never got one to the boat.  There are many rock ledges in Boca Grande Pass that enable the fish to cut the line, and that was probably how the two fish broke off.

Tomorrow, Sunday, will be another day of competition for the men’s division.  I’m captain of Team Organized Chaos.

Unfortunately, we are expecting even tougher conditions than we faced today.  Our strategy will likely be to take the first fish we catch to the scale.  We may not get a second tarpon.

Back to today … we moved out of Boca Grande after the morning and had some fun.

This afternoon was great action throwing imitation glass minnow buck tail jigs.

There have been many very small grey back pilchards and large glass minnows moving in from the gulf.  We can catch a lot of these very small bait fish, but they are too small to fish on a hook.  In a month or so, they will have grown and be terrific bait.  In the meantime, we have been using small jigs and they are working very well.

While tarpon were tough today, the other fishing was great.  My recommendation is to go out early.   Look for birds diving in water deeper than three feet to find fish that are feeding on the schools of small pilchards and glass minnows and cast imitation glass minnow buck tail jigs into the mix.

We caught many jacks, lady fish, trout and mackerel this afternoon.  We also fished just inside Captiva Pass on the strong outgoing tide and caught many black nose and black tip sharks with cut up ladyfish.

It may have been tough at Boca Grande this morning, but it was a good day of fishing off Sanibel & Captiva, despite all the holiday boat traffic.

Tight lines this memorial day weekend!  Hoping our luck changes for tarpon at Boca Grande tomorrow!

Fair winds and following seas,

Captain Joey Burnsed ~ call 239-472-8658 or email captjoefred@gmail to book a charter.