SUBJECT: How's Fishing? The Answer, My Friend, is Blowin' in the Wind...SW FL-Bonita Beach

Submitted by Captain Dave Hanson (69.136.16.112) from FLORIDA on

High winds were the theme on Monday, 3/17 so I stayed close in at the artificial reefs with Jay and Ellen Andreoletti. Still, we had three to four foot seas and it was choppy for the duration of our trip. We had a good morning of fishing, though, with live shrimp. We got into some cobia and released two of those at 30 inches and 31 inches. We lost one larger one too, after it ran the line out and broke off on bottom. We also caught four keeper mangrove snapper, a keeper sheepshead and a porkfish. We released gag grouper shorts. Overall, we had a productive and fun morning of fishing, despite the rough conditions.

Tuesday, winds blew even harder, seas got even rougher, and the bay remained bone-dry. I cancelled my fishing plans and hoped the wind might die down by Wednesday, but the wind howled all week long and Thursday morning also brought some rain along with the winds.

By Friday, the winds were still strong but at least they had shifted direction and the water level in the bay was better. Lee Larsen, son Kyle and friends Steve and Bud traded their gulf fishing plans for the backwaters. Lee caught a keeper redfish at 19 inches and we also got a pair of 13 inch sheepshead on shrimp. We released smaller sheepshead, snapper and cravalle jacks.

Saturday morning was the calmest we’d seen for a couple of weeks but there was a lot of rain out over the water. My anglers that day included a few young children and they didn’t want to risk wet weather so we ended up calling that trip, making the total week’s tally two out of six. This is not an unfamiliar story for the month of March but is nonetheless frustrating. There’s always next week…