Capt. George Tunison

With this heat, slow your lure presentations, seek shade and depth during the day, and fish at night when the big fish come out to play. Be sure to give the fish a break and don’t play them till exhaustion, especially big fish like tarpon. The heat plus the fight can kill any fish, so don’t under-tackle and take the time to thoroughly revive your catch before release or unnecessarily feed the sharks with a 25-year old beautiful gamefish.

The tarpon report remains pretty much the same this week with the main body of tarpon still seeming to prefer Boca Grande Pass over the harbor and coastline possibly due to relatively cooler and more oxygenated Gulf waters in the pass.

Crabs up top or threadfins are always good choices with bigger and catchable threadfins reported over and around the 20-foot holes in the harbor. Remember that lots of bait with insufficient aeration and room coupled with Southwest Florida heat equals dead, wasted bait, and time.

Lots of little tarpon in the Cape and PGI canals if you want to drive yourself crazy, trying to get one to bite. Just keep telling yourself they have to get hungry sometime.

If you want to start collecting your own bait, you don’t need a net as Sabiki rigs work well but the process is often time consuming. If you go the Sabiki route, it’s a good plan to buy a dedicated Sabiki rod outfit that houses all those tiny hooks internally preventing a tangled mess and wasted time.

Buying expensive bait locally from shop holding tanks often gives less than desirable results as typically it’s already weakened from the capture and storage process. Learning to throw the cast net is much more productive.

Choosing the net mesh size and diameter will depend on the size baits you intended to collect. A general rule might be a 1 inch mesh or larger for big baits like mullet for tarpon and big snook down to 3/8 inch mesh for general duty, then down to 1/4 inch for minnows and small shiners. Seasoned pros throw 12-footers, but the typical inshore guide or causal collector can do just fine with an all-purpose 8-footer. Good nets open well and sink fast not allowing bait to escape so buy the best net that you can afford and take care of it and it will pay for itself.

There are Lots of small snook and some redfish hanging around shady mangrove shorelines on both sides of Charlotte Harbor. Beach front or night bridge fishing puts you in bigger to trophy-sized snook territory. Spanish macs are in the harbor, around the passes to almost anywhere offshore and don’t be surprised if my favorite light tackle fish, the bonito, occasionally moves in to feed with the mackerel.

Make sure you check the FWC website before heading out to the 150-foot depths and beyond as seasonal closures for popular species like red snapper and red grouper are in effect. Red grouper re-opens Jan. 1 and red snapper re-opens again in October and November for 3-day harvest weekends.

Grey or mangrove snapper are open year-round with a 10-inch total length in state waters, 12-inch total length in federal.

If you want to deeply bend a rod and your back, amberjack opened this past Tuesday but ends quickly on the 25th of the month. My favorite aquarium fish, the triggerfish, is also outstanding on the plate and also opened to harvest Tuesday. You only get to keep one with a 15-inch fork length measured with the mouth closed.

Inshore seatrout aren’t big fans of hot water but there are schools of smaller fish so bending down jig head barbs saves small trout from nasty barb injuries.

Hard to believe but happy that fall redfish schooling season is right around the corner starting in September, in the meantime stay well hydrated.

Capt. George Tunison is a Cape Coral resident fishing guide. You can contact him at 239-282-9434 or via email at captgeorget3@aol.com.