Capt. George Tunison

Follow the birds around offshore and if you’re lucky they’ll lead you to some of the year’s best, lite tackle action.

If do locate a feeding frenzy of mackerel, bluefish or bonito, please don’t drive through the school! Stay back and cast to the edges of the feeding frenzy. Driving through the school puts them down and ruins the fishing for everyone.

While casting into the frenzy with your lures, be sure to have a choice baitfish under a float working out behind the boat to get the interest of a jumbo kingfish that’s hanging around the action or, slowly troll those big baits around the action.

Late fall bonito fishing is always a great time. If you’ve never caught one you are in for a treat. These fish are a light tackle spin and fly angler’s dream. Hard fights, blinding speed and screaming drags are the norm after hooking up. A simple white bucktail jig is my go-to lure and straight speed reeling often does the trick when they are in feeding mode.

Cooling water gets our trout going and each week the fishing gets better. Can’t beat a shrimp under a cork or for those that can’t sit still, break out the ultra-lites and a bag of soft plastic paddle tails. Take an assortment of jig heads weights and paddle-tail colors to be able to fish deep or shallow spots.

Take a look under those crab trap floats as you go by and circle back if you spot a tripletail lurking in the shadows. Unless you spook him with poor boat handling, they will usually take your live shrimp, small baitfish or fly rod offering. Getting up tide and drifting a nice shrimp back to the fish is a time tested method. Power the fish away from the float rope otherwise he will use it against you, often breaking the line.

Never tasted tripletail? You’re in for a treat! Minimum harvest size is 18 inches – two per day. World record – a 48 lb., 5oz. giant, caught off Zululand, S. Africa, in 1989. Florida record – 40 lb., 13 oz. caught in 1998.

The pompano is a fall fish worth targeting around passes and a favorite on the plate. Small, colorful jigs on light leaders bumped along the bottom kicking up clouds of bottom sediment, is the standard retrieve. The have a generous harvest limit of up to 6 per day as long as they have an 11-inch fork length.

Sheepshead fishing isn’t in full swing quite yet but fish are being taken. Yet another really tasty fish, the sheepshead will steal most of your bait before you get the hang of catching one. Most folks think of fishing vertically around docks and bridges for these bait thieves but some of the biggest I’ve taken have come from around mangrove island points with deep water cuts running by them, while fishing for redfish and snook. Nearshore reefs typically stack up first before inshore structure and islands. Oyster bars are also another sheepie hangout. Fiddler crabs and shrimp bits are bait favorites and using small, thin wire hooks allows hooks to hold. Clean with gloves on as they aren’t the easiest fish to fillet but certainly worth the effort. The have a 12-inch harvest size with 8 allowed per harvester. Turn on the oven!

Various sized redfish are still being taken with more rats starting to show up. Nothing beats bait on the bottom for sensitive nosed redfish although soft plastic paddle tails on 1/4 oz. jig heads is still a solid choice.

Snook are moving into local canals, creeks and upriver and eating heavily. This winter take a flats break and explore the upper Caloosahatchee and Peace rivers for your snook, redfish and jumbo jack fix. Tarpon fanatics find winter tarpon around the power plant/I-75 Bridge area and around the Franklin Locks.

Near the I-75 Bridge is the Orange River which can be a cold water snook hotspot, definitely worth exploring.

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