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I am staying on Marco Island during the last week in May and hoping to do some fishing. I have already booked one day with a guide out of Marco Island. What other opportunities are available? I am coming down from MN. Is it possible to do any shore fishing? What should I bring for rod/reel and lures? I have a ton of questions so anything you can share would be helpful. Thanks.
Did you get to do any fishing? I'm headed down in October (1st time) and was hoping you had some advice. :)
I just left there in the middle of July. Find the Florida fishing message board, I just googled florida fishing and search the area reports. I did good fishing off the pier, live lining (no weight) small pilchards for snook. I caught 18 in one day, the biggest snook I caught was around 12 pounds, they averaged 5-6 pounds. They fight about like a largemouth but of course we were fishing with 9 foot surf rods, 20 pound power pro and 30 pound floro leaders. They'd tear the crap out of a 6 foot spinning rod around that pier. I caught the biggest snook at the Marco bridge at night, was throwing a weighted bobber from shore with either a jig, fluke or live bait. You can see them hitting bait all over the place at night, just make sure you bring bug repellant, I've still got scabs from the skeeters and they don't bother me much.
We saw several tarpon caught, I hooked up on two, one off the point in south Marco, the other off the beach in Naples. For beach fishing try the beach at South Marco, there's a parking area there and then you have to walk. Go to the jeddys, they aren't much but when a good tide comes through we had huge tarpon passing within 30 feet of the beach, a good sized live bait under a balloon should give you a shot at them, the two I hooked were big pin fish I caught at the Marco boat dock and then took to the beach at S. Marco. Take spoons, diamond jigs, gotchas, all that kind of stuff, my go to lure was a chartruse Krocadile (sp?) spoon. I caught all kinds of stuff on it. There are huge jacks that run both on the pier and off the point at south Marco, trust me, you catch a 15 pounder on small spinning gear that's about all you want. They aren't any good to eat but make great shark bait, we hooked two nice ones on the Naples pier but you can't bring them up or you'll get a ticket, the winds and tide weren't right for getting a bait out far enough to catch them from the beach.
For charters, check out some of the boats at Ft Myers, they seemed alot better than the ones at Marco or Naples.
If you've got any specific questions let me know, we were there for 9 days and fished every day, all over the place.
Looks like you had fun. I have alot of the stuff you mentioned so if time permits I'll give it a try. I'm headed down on a business trip/vacation, I appreciate the info. :)
Definately take a big enough rod out to cast to those snook under the bridge. you'll need to cast out toward the middle right on the line of the shadow and light from the lights. I used a weighted cork, one oz sinker and a fluke. Then hang on.
Heck, those Snook taste great are they in season?
Didn't get to fish but watched a few gray Snapper being caught and a large snook get off at the ramp. I loved the weather!:)