2015, February, 19^th. Fishing is bouncing around as much as our weather.

We certainly can’t complain about cold here with the ice box everyone else is enduring. It has been chilly by our standards recently. The fish are as confused as we are. We’ve enjoyed some good action on the warmer days. It’s predicted to get back into the mid-seventies for Sunday; Spring should arrive down here in Venice soon. March is almost here and bookings are looking good for me; so please make your reservations ASAP! The grandchildren are coming and we both want to share time of our beautiful Charlotte Harbor waters with them. Family trips are my favorite; smiling kids are the best.

Trout and pompano were providing some fine fun and great eating before the cold weather shut us down. Weather warms up as fast as it chills so we will back at it this weekend. Sheepshead are hungry and will turn on as soon as we can get to them on the near-shore Gulf reef system. The structures are scattered from Boca Grande south, up past Venice Beach in about forty feet of water from three to seven miles out. They also hold some cobia, snapper, and flounder frequently. When waters warm back up into the seventies the migratory mackerel, sharks and so forth will travel into our waters. We have fish now and it will improve every time it warms up until Summer.

I’m very excited about the next few months fishing. March and April the Spanish Mackerel are due; fast, fun, tasty, and abundant. The action frequently gets too fast to keep up with. Their larger cousins the kingfish will move in and scream our drags. The Spanish run up to five pounds and kings usually average about twenty!  Sharks actually become a problem many days because they can be hard to get away from. They even chew up some of our mackerel. Everything follows the baitfish schools. We just watch for local water temps to reach about seventy degrees.

Snook fishing opens in March and usually picks up at about seventy-five degree water temps mid-month. We need those minnow schools for bait to turn on snook. Englewood’s Ski Alley was off last year and I’m anxious to see how we do this summer. We usually get good snook action off Venice beaches about May. Tarpon will begin to move into Boca Grande in late April to early May and peak in June.

Life is treating me well so far; I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones as our season progresses. Lots of good things happening in fishery management and the future outlook is good too. Thank you, Captain Van Hubbard