With our February summer weather pattern holding strong, some species like sheepshead, which are normally top winter cold species targets, aren’t as plentiful for many inshore anglers this season. Off and nearshore boats are doing better when looking for these delicious champion bait stealers, which, for beginners, are often hard to hook.

Sheeps-head novices are puzzled as to why the people in the other boat are using a flat shovel to scrape barnacles off bridge pilings. It’s called shovel chumming. This sudden release of hundreds of tasty tidbits into the water column can really draw the sheepshead and get them biting.

Use a small thin wire hook with as little weight as the current will allow and fish straight up and down inches away from the pilings and keep boat noise to a minimum. The best bait is the fiddler crab with shrimp and small blue crab bits in the runner-up positions. A 12-inch minimum size and a daily recreational bag limit of 8 fish per angler with a vessel limit of not more than 50 fish during March and April is the law.

Inshore bridge action is still providing lots of low-tech fun especially for those that have never been suddenly hooked to a fish that feels like an unstoppable truck.

Wide eyed visiting Delaware angler Dale Findlay never knew his heavy duty rod and arms could bend soooo deeply as his half a blue claw crab was inhaled by an unstoppable Peace River bridge monster. For real fun, take out a crew or family from, say Kansas, that’s only caught sunnies and crappies, and fish our local bridges. Take plenty of blue crabs, fiddlers and shrimp and drop them down. Get the camera ready to capture one of the young crew holding up a nice sheepshead or a lifetime memory video of complete chaos as three of the crew struggle together on the “big rod” tied to something so big it’s pulling the boat upriver.

Speaking of upriver, now might be the time to explore it if you’ve never taken the time to wet a winter line east of Fort Myers. Winter sends many local fish eastward up the Caloosahatchee and away from usually cold Gulf waters. Resident tarpon, reds, trout (especially silver trout), jacks and, depending on the salinity, even Spanish macks can be found in many areas.

The largest Jack Crevalle I’ve ever seen in Southwest Florida hang around the I-75 and railroad trestle bridge in wintertime. Many locals spend winter chasing resident tarpon around the Franklin Locks while up-river docks and sun-warmed shallow flats draw sub-tropical heat seeking snook.

Sliver trout are good winter targets and those that really know how to use their electronics to find the river “holes” will find the fish. Great ultra-light fun with shrimp-tipped jigs my go-to choice. This is considered one of the FWC’s unregulated species with no minimum size limits and a 100-pound limit.

Near shore reefs offer not only sheepshead but lots of tasty snapper and one of the best eating fish in Florida — the hogfish.

This strange looking creature has no closed season in the Gulf and has a 14-inch fork length with a 5 fish limit. The hogfish is a delicious must try when visiting Florida and don’t forget another really tasty winter fish, the pompano. This tough little guy pulls like a fish 4 times its size and is outstanding on the plate. You can keep 6 pomps per day as long as the fork length is 11 inches.

The FWC lists 8 species of snapper with different size limits and harvest laws. Visit its site for rules and identification to save yourself from trouble and penalties if you’re not in the know and tasty snapper are your target species for the day.

For info on 1-5 person charters or our total beginners all-inclusive two hour saltwater fly fishing course, please contact us.

Capt. George Tunison is a Cape Coral resident fishing guide. Contact him at 239-282-9434 or captgeorget3@aol.com.