Captain Aron reports the fishing is outstanding. This is by far, my favorite part of the year to fish.

The fall bait run has started. There are shiners and mullet on every tide swept point and the gamefish are in the middle. If you find bait and moving water, you will be on fish. The Snook fishing is as good as it gets with most of the fish in the 20-26 inch range with a few above. There has been good Redfish action around Marco and Cape Romano. The best have been the high outgoing Tide and the last part of the riser. The last few days have been great for Tarpon. Still mornings fishing the passes on the outgoing tide is where I have been finding fish. also the backcountry holes and creeks have been good for Juveniles. I fished with Walt and Justin Turburski Last week and Walt hooked a massive Tarpon while fishing a shiner in two feet of water for Snook. I thought the fish would be off quick on such a light setup, but the big Tarpon managed to stay hooked for 2 1/2 hours. It was Walt's biggest Tarpon and he just couldn't bring himself to break it off.
Today I fished with Joel Hazelbaker and he had tarpon on his mind. We went offshore a few miles and loaded up on great bait and ran to a pass in Marco Island for Snook and reds. It wasn't long before we were in to the Fish. Redfish and Snook were in the boat in short time. The Bite slowed so I ran far south to a big pass in the 10,000 Island's and found Tarpon everywhere We made the first drift and was hooked up in minutes to a fish around 50-60lbs. Joel new what he was doing and bowed to every jump and he knew how to them the spool just perfectly. He had the first fish and a grand slam (Tarpon, Snook and Redfish) In about an hour. After that we hooked up a Tarpon on evry drift all around 60lbs and up. These fish should stay put for the rest of the fall run but looks like we have some Tropical weather coming this weekend. So I think this will put the fish off until the weather gets back to normal.
Go fish
Captain Aron Blaisdell

Joel Hazelbaker bows to a late summer Silver King.