Fishing with Capt. George Tunison | Hooked on Christmas — and it’s not what you think
Every year my Christmas tree is loaded down with a ton of lures and twinkling lights and because I was double-bit by the fishing bug many decades ago, this simply makes me feel good during the holidays.
This week while decorating said tree and reaching on tip-toes, I stretched to place the chrome Skitterwalk on the very top branch Satisfied, I naturally brought my arms down snagging, no actually burying, part of an upturned ultra-sharp MirrOdine treble hook in the soft skin of my armpit which, of course, made me feel bad. This was made worse by the fact that the lure was still attached to the pine as well as the pit.
My involuntary reaction to suddenly being impaled and attached made me lose balance and almost pull the whole tree loaded with several hundred sharp points down on shirtless self, which would have been quite unpleasant. I won’t relate the gory details of the extraction process, alone using the mirror and pliers, bleeding, but I did learn valuable lessons — always decorate a lure tree starting at the top and never decorate alone.
After opening all your Christmas goodies, launch the boat after lunch and, wind permitting, start looking for tailers or tailing redfish. With low, -0.2 tides predicted (At Pineland) by noon, stay in the marked inshore channels or face trouble. If you’re new to the area, keep in mind that in this area during negative tide events, just a few feet out of the marked channel can ruin the day. By all means never boat without a tow policy in force or be sorry if trouble calls.
After catching and releasing a trio of fat copper-colored reds from the shallows, head out through the pass and look for birds and feeding mackerel along the way out to prospect for buoy bass, snagdrifters, jumping cod, triplefins or as we know them in Florida, tripletail. This tough, hard-fighting, sometimes acrobatic, hands down delicious, odd-looking fish is usually found under a crab float, around markers, docks, random floating grass or any floating garbage in most parts of the world and often growing quite large. Trips range in size with the real big boys typically living in north Florida, although the current state record of 40 pounds, 13 ounces was boated near Fort Pierce. This monster tripletail catch wasn’t far from the current IGFA world record fish weighing in at 42 pounds, 5 ounces caught in Africa.
FWC rules call for an 18-inch minimum size limit and two fish limit open to harvest year round. Stone crab trap season and the trap floats that draw tripletail starts Oct. 1 and ends on May 1.
Pick a line of crab floats and motor by them but not too closely. Fishing from tower boats or otherwise elevating yourself while wearing good polarized glasses helps spot the tripletail lurking under the float or further down in the water column relating to the float rope. The fish may be as small as your hand or if you’re lucky, big as a garbage can lid. Drifting a live shrimp to the fish will get action but after hook-up do your best to power the fish away from the rope or structure as it will definitely use it to break off.
If you just can’t get enough there are still tarpon reported in the Boca Grande depths with Spanish macs running in and out along with sheepshead action around the dock structures.
The Matlacha Bridge also reports sporadic sheepie action ,which will keep improving as temperatures drop.
Drifting the 4-foot local grassy flats with corks and shrimp while casting soft plastics puts you in trout territory with redfish as by-catch.
The bars on both sides of the harbor continue to produce pompano, small cobia, trout, with reds and snook further back under and along the brush.
Wishing all a safe and wonderful Christmas!
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.