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Fish Tales: 'Local Waters' class provides basics of navigation

By CATHY COTTRILL (Contact)

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

A couple of activities are on tap for anglers this week.

• The San Carlos Bay Power Squadron, a unit of the United States Power Squadrons, is offering its popular "Local Waters" class. The class is directed toward new boaters and boaters new to the area, as well as those wishing to learn chart reading. It will provide the boater with some of the basics of navigation, oriented to the Fort Myers area. Students will be using chart 11427 and they must bring this chart to class. The class will be held from 8:30 a.m. to noon Saturday, Jan. 20. Classes are held at the squadron classroom located at 16048 San Carlos Blvd., at the corner of Kelly Road (across from Ace Hardware) in South Fort Myers. The cost of the class is $ 30. Register online at www.scbps.com or call 466-4040.

• Floridians will have a chance to comment on snook fishery management during public workshops scheduled throughout the state this month.

A recent Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission stock assessment for snook concluded the management goal of a 40 percent spawning potential ratio established for this fishery is not being met and increasing fishing effort is contributing to the declining rate. Spawning potential ratio is the ratio of the egg production of mature fish in a fished population to the egg production that would exist if the population was not fished.

The purpose of the workshops is to review the commission's recent snook stock assessment and consider recommendations made by a workgroup formed by the FWC to help evaluate the management of the snook fishery. The workgroup recommendations for snook include narrowing the current 27-34 inches total length slot limit, changing the closed seasons and reducing the Atlantic coast daily bag limit from two fish per day to one fish.

The public is encouraged to participate at the workshops. Locally, a workshop will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday, Jan. 22, at the Old County Courthouse, 2115 Second St., Fort Myers. Information is available online at http://myfwc.com/marine/workgroups/index.html#Snook.

For more information, call Lee Schlesinger at (850) 487-0554.

• • •

Out on the water, anglers continued to dodge gusty weather to find the fish.

Fishbuster Charters' Captain Dave Hanson fished last Monday at a wreck about 28 miles west of New Pass with Jim McCormick, his daughter Marin, and friend Dan Gilbert. They caught a nice variety of fish, but the snapper bite didn't really heat up until late in the afternoon, which is when the group caught most of the nice mangrove snapper.

"We got eight of those to 18½ inches, and also got a pretty nice hogfish at 15 inches," said Hanson. "We caught triggerfish and porgies too, and released a 12 pound amberjack, red grouper to 19 inches and gag grouper to 21 inches. We had our lines broken five times by goliath grouper, and there were loads of blue runners everywhere."

Late Monday night, the winds began blowing hard in advance of a cold front, and small craft advisories were issued, with 4-6 foot seas through Wednesday, so Hanson canceled his trips.

On Thursday, even though low tide made conditions less than optimal in the bay, Bill Kaufman followed through with plans for himself and his son, Chris, 13, to go fishing. With Hanson's best efforts directed toward having Chris catch anything, Hanson managed to hook up with some sheepshead and ladyfish, all tossed back in, of course.

"The fun of catching was the most important thing to Chris. He got to spot a few porpoise jumping in the bay too," Hanson said.

Capt. Ron Kowalyk said the bite was on in the backwaters and on the nearshore reefs last week. He found pods of rat and lower slot redfish in Estero Bay and up north. The afternoon high tides provided the best action for crews of two to four anglers with plenty of drift fishing and a nice mixed bag bite under the bushes, Reds, snook, snapper and big sheepies ate shrimp served up on brightly color jigheads. Fly guys and plug fishers on the shallow water skiffs found upper slot reds, release snook and big sheepies hungry for Gulp Shrimp, Slurp Shrimp and DOA's. The central flats of Estero Bay and the Sanibel toll booth drifts help a few slot trout, jacks, ladyfish, sharks and best of all some large pompano to 4 plus pounds.

Kowalyk found kings, snook and oversized redfish on the close reefs. The big reds favored whitebait, pins and our best catch came on a Gulp Shrimp dressed jig in 220 plus feet of water. There was lots of bait on the reefs and kings were busting the pods.

"Trollers and plug fisherman scored as they circle the boiling bait pods," he said. "Fly guys got their shots and a sink tip line was needed to get your fly into the bite zone.

• From Kowalyk's Captain's Corner: A good fit is essential in employing winter patterns. As the saying goes, "Anglers in the know, know to fish slow." That's rule number one. But an often-overlooked adjustment when fishing tentative biters is hook, bait or lure size. At turnover time and at full blown winter, fish tend to favor mouth-sized bits. Hooks and jigheads need to be fine-tuned to these circumstances. Larger quarry will often take smaller offerings, but those pesky bait-stealers require a finesse approach. Very sharp wire hooks may be best for sheepies, snapper and trout. If you're targeting upper slot reds, wide-gap, super sharp, special alloy hooks are a better bet. Chunk baits, big shrimp, whitebait and soft plastics are better served when dressing a wide-gap hook. "Pick and walk-off" is the typical cool weather strike, so a short drop-back and brisk set will generally keep your offering in place long enough to score. Simply pointing of the rod tip toward the run-off is usually an ample drop-back to insure a secure hook set.

Submissions to Fish Tales should be made by noon each Monday. Contact Cathy Cottrill at 213-6031 or by e-mail at cccottrill@bonitanews.com. Her fax number is 213-6099.