Fishing with Capt. George Tunison | Lingering tarpon and some surprises in cooling area waters
Holiday tarpon were observed rolling and a few reported caught from multiple locations earlier in the week. There’s still a handful lingering in Boca Grande Pass as well as in and around the 20-foot holes in Charlotte Harbor and the mouth of the Myakka River. Pinfish and shrimp got two Boca fish interested enough to play. Continued cold fronts will soon have die-hard tarpon anglers moving their game upriver looking for warmer waters and hungry resident fish.
Back to back trips this week to Turtle Bay were quite productive. Trout, redfish, pompano, snook and high jumping ladyfish all turned out in numbers providing hours of steady action using soft plastics like DOA grubs and shrimp, live shrimp, top-water plugs, fly rod poppers and hair bugs. Two surprise but short cobia were also caught on scented soft plastics. Leaving the area heading south towards Pine Island, we encountered fast action on Spanish macs and small kingfish in the area near the Cape Haze Reef on both days by watching tell-tale birds then slow trolling small Clark spoons.
Besides going to lighter lines and leaders as well as slowing your retrieve during the cold months, adding bottled scents to your soft/hard plastics ups your odds of moving cold, weary fish, especially cold-slowed snook and fish with very sensitive noses like redfish.
Fishing inshore this coming weekend, have live pinfish and shrimp onboard as well as your basic “slow” lure selection to cover all the bases. As it gets even colder, learning how to fish the DOA shrimp in slow motion using subtle movements with long pauses and falls will get interest. Adding scents to this bait is definitely recommended and always tie it to your leader using a loop knot for the best action. Only use loop knots that have the tag end of the knot facing the lure otherwise it’s a grass collector. Another, great winter hard bait is the MirrOdine twitch bait fished as slowly and enticingly as possible.
The DOA Shrimp is super winter dock bait in the Caloosahatchee. Cast to a piling and let the bait naturally free fall alongside while you keep an eagle eye on your line looking for a twitch or any movement signaling a fish has inhaled your offering. After letting it hit bottom don’t be in a hurry to reel it in, just let it sit for a long 5-10 count letting the commercial scents do their magic. Reel up and slowly repeat on the next piling.
This is a hard technique for many anglers to master as it requires lots of patience to perform properly but worth the effort as it moves big fish. It’s very hard, sometimes impossible, to get most anglers to fish this slowly and methodically. When using a spinning reel, after casting keep the bail open riding the spool with your free fingers while letting line pay out so the bait falls vertically next to the piling while keeping an eye on the line for any movement. If you get bit while the bait is falling instantly clamp down on the spool, set the hook then flip over the bail (or work out your own method). Eighty percent or more of your bites will happen on the fall. Be a line watcher.
When targeting pompano, the passes and beachfronts are a high percentage place to start but these past few weeks both the Burnt Store Bar and west wall bar have been very productive using shrimp-tipped colorful jigs on fun ultra-lite tackle.
Some short cobia are around both bars as well.
Sheepshead are moving in closer from our nearshore reefs and the Boca Grande phosphate docks are producing some sizable and tasty specimens.
Nearshore GPS numbers out to 15 miles means nice snapper and sheepies, if the breeze is too strong to go offshore for another red snapper weekend.
This weekend features low water in the afternoons. Use caution.
Capt. George Tunison is a Cape Coral resident fishing guide. You can contact him at 239-579-0461 or via email at captgeorget3@aol.com.