"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 21:30:34 -0500, "NOYB" wrote:

Wayne,
Are you seeing any juvenile tarpon up your way? I've been reading reports
of lots of juvenile tarpon (15-30lbs) being caught in the Punta Gorda
canals
on white bucktail jigs.

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Interesting. I haven't seen any personally but I'll ask around the
neighborhood. We did have a school of fair sized fish in a feeding
frenzy right in front of the house the other day. I'm not sure what
they were but one neighbor thought they were "Jacks".

There is a seminar on local fishing being offered on Saturday morning
at the so called Cape Coral yacht club (actually a municipal
facility). I'm going to try and attend since I need to learn more
about fishing in this area. I trolled a couple of lures off the back
of the trawler coming north from Marco Isalnd a few weeks ago but no
hits. It would have been dumb luck but you never know.

Next time, try this:

Buy some Mann's Stretch 25+ and Stretch 30+ lures ( I like gold/black and
the purple mullet colors). Get two heavy rods spooled with a minimum of 30
lb. test and 50-60 lb. leader (fluorocarbon is best). Tie the line to the
Mann's Stretch 25+ and run that rod out the back of the boat about 150 feet.
Run the 30+ out about 75-100 feet. Troll those lures at about 4.5-5.2 mph,
and make sure you pass over all of the county artificial reefs (available on
the internet or on most fishing charts) in 25-30 feet of water. If the
lures are bumping bottom when you're over flat bottom, then reel them in a
little so they run shallower. These lures are designed to run at their
advertised depth (either 25 feet or 30 feet) when you troll them on 150 of
line at aobut 5 mph. If you increse speed or increase length of line, they
run a bit deeper. If you want them to run really deep (35 and 50 feet,
respectively), then use one of the ultra-fine braided lines.

This time of year, with the water temps in the low to mid 60's, the gag
grouper are in close on all of the near-shore reefs.

When the water temps start reaching 68-72 in the spring, then start trolling
spoons on a planing rig to get the lure down in the water column a bit. Use
wire leader! You'll catch some kings then.

In the fall, slow troll small spoons through flocks of birds working the
surface and you'll catch a ton of spanish mackeral.

Any other time, you can slow troll a deep diving Yozuri and maybe get lucky
with a bonito...but you've got a lot better chance by doing what I suggested
with the other lures.