June 14th 2012 web report from Captain Van Hubbard

We enjoyed some good action several days last week. While snook and tarpon are our main targets right now; we do have other fish available if you want to pursue them. I even saw several pompano down by Boca Grande on the 12^th. Spanish Mackerel are abundant enough to target if you desire. A few mangrove snapper are finally showing up but it’s not right yet; maybe next month? Trout and reds are ready if you have some patience.

Snook are the hot item if you’re looking for action. If we find our tides moving linesiders have been hungry. Some days have even allowed several multiple hookups. Many fish are medium sized twenty to thirty inch fun fish but some are pushing the forty inch trophy status. Live minnows are the hot ticket and they can be challenging to cast net if the sun is bright. Morning trips have been best recently. Light tackle and drag pulling trophy fish make our day!

Tarpon are abundant and have been simply crazy so far much of this season. Crazy weather conditions, in the form of strong west winds are part of the problem many days recently and have complicated our catching. Some days tarpon bite fine, others are difficult.  Tarpon are thick around Boca Grande Pass most mornings but get chased out of their normal hangouts to adjacent areas by nine or ten AM because of aggressive boat operations. If you’re interested in more information about this I suggest you look up <save the tarpon.com> for a better understanding of this problem. We do have plenty of fish roaming our beaches up thru Venice and beyond; but strong west winds frequently have hampered our efforts. If conditions allow us access to Gulf waters we enjoy the action stalking giant tarpon. Our morning bite is usually very productive but fish eat anytime they feel like it.  My best guess is fishing here will improve dramatically when the visiting fleet of aggressive, impatient flashy boats goes home after the Forth. Even the abundant Boca Grande tarpon can only tolerate so much pressure without out reacting! While our tarpon fishing has been off some days, a more normal weather pattern should stimulate the action. At least it will scatter the fleet fishing for tarpon, leaving us happy tarpon to play with.

Pompano are not normally a target right now but I found a few schools while tarpon fishing on Wednesday. They move around with the moon phases but I saw enough to get me excited. We could catch few if we tried?

Spanish Mackerel are scattered around but I’m consistently seeing fish while catching minnows. Spanish are scattered about and not in the concentrated migratory schools but large and very tasty. We have mackerel from Charlotte Harbor all the way to the near shore reefs. The tiny baitfish are beginning to show up so it’s time for macks and Mangos.

Mangrove snapper are not quite thick enough to target yet but look good for our July fishing. While they can be challenging, if you can hook em, they are very tasty pan sautéed. I’ll be watching to see how fast this fishery picks up for us.

Trout are here but I’ve been catching bigger fish recently. We can hunt some up if you’re looking for a fresh fish dinner. We can expect an assortment of species while trout fishing now with insures action.

Redfish have blessed several trips recently but are not as dependable as past years. The tournament pressures of recent years have trashed our local populations of slot fish. We have fish but many folks want to target redfish so it is great when we get em biting, it’s just not every day. We are seeing smaller fish and that’s encouraging they grow fast.  Our redfish populations are pressured by eager anglers but not dead!

Thanks to many of you I have enjoyed a busy year and good to even great fishing so far this year. Business is slowing down now, this means a spur of the moment trip might work in for both of us? I welcome the slow down so I can catch up on everything else, especially life. Thank you all and I really look forward to fishing with you these days and my sharing time on our beautiful waters. Let’s just go early because it gets hot in the afternoons! I’m holding up fine but I can feel my age catching up with me after a long week and busy six months. I’m trying to fish smarter because I can’t fish harder! Let’s find time to share with family and friends fishin’ soon! Captain Van Hubbard. <www.captvan.com>