The seasons first cold front passed thru on Monday driving the tide lower, dirting up the water on the outside and clearing the water somewhat in the backcountry. The coldfront can knock the algae out of the water in the backcountry making the water clearer.

As they sometimes do, tarpon showed up in the rips during the morning incoming tides this week. When we have a cold front on or near a full moon the tarpon show up feeding on the mullet in the rips that form around the points near Naples and Marco Island into the 10,000 Islands. They can be tough on flies but I have had sucess using big mullet pattern flies around 6" long. The long A Bomber lures work as well as live ladyfish or mullet. The fish are always in the 80-120lb range. The phenomenon only happens in the spring and fall.

I'm still fishing some baby tarpon in the backcountry, averaging 5lbs. Live bait has worked as well as the EP perfect minnows flies in chartreuse.

Snook are starting to move into the backcountry. We've had good success fishing fairly deep in the backcountry this week using live bait, jigs and flies. Troughs near shorelines have been good. The snook haven't been big but fairly good numbers.

There are still some redfish in the passes and smaller reds in the backcountry.

Fall is a great time of year to fish. The heat is gone and there is not alot of traffic on the water.

Give me a call or you can book on-line. There is a sub menu under the Fishing page.

Tight lines.

Capt. Mark Ward
239-450-9230 cell