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Fish Tales

By CATHY COTTRILL (Contact)

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Tarpon were the prime catch last week for some lucky anglers. But silver kings weren’t the only catch reported. Anglers also had success with release snook, snapper, reds and pompano.

Capt. Ron Kowalyk saw good action in Estero Bay last week, with snook, reds, pompano and tarpon all busy feeding on the eastern wall and in the central bay. The wayback lagoons and creeks held their share of reds, snook and baby tarpon.

"My crews scored well with shrimp, Gulps Shrimp and whitebait on slot reds,’’ he said. "Bigger release snook came off the beaches and in the passes. Tarpon are on the nearshore reefs and chasing the schools of threadfins off the beaches. We jumped several tarpon in the 60-80 plus pound class using arties (shallow running X Rap plugs) and Purple Tarpon Toad flies. The tarpon fishing is pretty much ‘chaos theory’ patterning, drift and pitch blind casting or long waits for sightfishing shots. Two of my anglers probably cast 300 to 400 times in four hours of tarpon hunting with flies and plugs.’’

Dead stick anglers reported better results with catfish tails and cut shad fished on the bottom. Kowalyk believes the tarpon are feeding on the plentiful catfish that are a nuisance bycatch for driftfishers targeting trout, Spanish and pompano. Those same bothersome critters make for a find tarpon and shark bait, always look on the bright side!

Fishbuster Charters’ Capt. Dave Hanson fished last Tuesday in 80 feet on a 265 heading out of New Pass with anglers Jim McCarthy and his friend Dan. They had one great day fishing. Baited with live shrimp, they began catching some nice yellowtail snapper to 16 inches, landed about eight of those along with keeper lane snapper to 12 inches. They kept four of the latter and released the rest. They also released 10 nice-sized banded rudder fish, two king mackerel at 26 inches and 40 inches, and short grouper to 20 inches.

"Our best catch was a 25 pound blackfin tuna, which we caught, believe it or not, on half a shrimp,’’ said Hanson. "We got that big boy boated, and I put a hunk of squid on the pole while I was getting the tuna on ice. Suddenly, the rod screamed — I thought it was another tuna. It spooled 200 plus yards of Power-Pro line. For 35 minutes with one angler on the reel and one on the top of the rod, we fought that fish. At the end of a long run, with no line left, I lifted the rod-tip ever so slightly. There was a big thrust on the end, and a 7-foot bull shark snapped the rod in half just under the big guide. With both pieces of the pole held fast, we fought that big boy to the end, thanked him for the fight, and released him. The thrill was well worth the damages!’’

Wednesday morning, Hanson’s old friends Chris and Lissa Dillon from Indiana were in town for business, and they managed to reserve some pleasure time, along with friend Ed Bosch, to fish offshore. They headed out about 15 miles on a 260 heading from New Pass with some shrimp and pinfish in the bait well. They caught 20 keeper-sized lane snapper, Spanish mackerel to 20 inches, a 28-inch kingfish, porkfish, whitebone porgies, a 25-inch goliath and grouper shorts to 19 inches. They caught one keeper gag grouper at 23 inches on a pinfish. They released all but the keeper gag and a few lanes.

Hanson fished with Jim McCarthy and Dan Gilbert again on Thursday, about 37 miles out of New Pass on a 260 heading.

"No tuna this time, but our shrimp and squid served up five mangrove snapper to 17 inches and 10 keeper yellowtail snapper,’’ Hanson said. "We released gags just short of legal to 21 inches and red grouper to 18 inches, along with porgies. We had two big sharks cut lines a couple times, but never close enough to see what kind.’’

Saturday, Hanson headed back out to the same area with Jim Ozark and two of his friends. They used shrimp and squid to catch a dozen keeper yellowtail snapper, a half-dozen lane snapper, grunts porgies and triggerfish. They released a variety of grouper shorts — reds, gags and scamps.