Heading for Marco Island

[jferras]

Hi...
My family and I are on our way to Marco Island, FL for the first time. Does anyone have fishing suggestions, such as locations, fishing hot spots, bait, etc?
jferras

[Putershark]

The Snook are running the beaches right now while they are schooling though you can't keep them, they put up a excellent fight and even better if it is a big female.

Just walk out into the swash channel around points or jetties with a med action spinning rod spooled up with your favorite braided line in the 20 lbs class size. Then with about 4 foot or so of 30 to 40 pound fluorocarbon leader, tie on with a loop knot a rootbeer color DOA terror eyes (sometimes white also works well) on a 1/8 to 1/4 oz jig head. Just make sure you do not touch the bait with your hands if they have sun screen on them (huge turn off) but make sure you wear plenty of the stuff right now or you will fry like a egg. Also make sure you have a quality pair of polarized sunglasses and a good but cool hat so you can "see" the fish working sometimes only in knee deep water.

Then cast parallel to the beach in the early morning or later in the afternoon and work it either like a crab by bumping and dragging it slow with little twitches or jigging it like a jumping shrimp (the fish will tell you how they like it that day) and have fun for your chances of hitting a nice sized Snook on the 15 plus pound range are pretty decent right now.

If you do get some, just make sure you hold them flat, not by the jaw or it could (though will swim away) die from starvation from a broken jaw when getting some pictures

The Spanish Macks are also running and feeding well and with the same outfit (maybe some thicker leader due to their teeth) pick up some finger long chrome with red head, weighted Gotcha pencil lures. Just hit one of the local piers and in the 10 plus water depths, cast way out and reel in at a pretty good clip (might need some more weight to hold it down) with some jerks and stops put in for good measure (that same loop knot to tie it on) comes in handy also. Now you can keep a few of them and they pan fry up very well if you bleed them out some before dropping them on ice.

The good thing is that neither of these fish require any kind of live bait (live bait = dead brain ) too hang into thus you can grab your gear and fish any time you want...

Tight Lines and enjoy your stay in Ole Spanish Florida

[k9reno]

My father in law lives down there and has had reall good luck around the bay side of cape ramano when the tide is running good. there are also a couple reefs 2 and 3 miles off shore that I have fished. It has been a few yrs and I forget the numbers right off hand. There was also What was labled an airplane out about 17 miles that we were getting grouper off of right and left. that had been maybe 4 yrs now. I really want to drag my boat back down again.

[jferras]

Putershark...
Thanks for the info... We ran out offshore today. Picked up some snapper and under sized groupers that we put back. We will fish the beach tomorrow. Thanks again and k9reno too.
Julian