FISHING REPORT 2001
Florida Central West Coast
________________________________________________
BRADENTON - OFFSHORE & INSHORE
OFFSHORE In 2001 the only thing that held us back was the weather. In January and February, it was cold, but most of our Northern customers didn't think much of our shivering. They thought it was warm. The fish bit well in March, but we had about 12 wind days when we could not go out. April brought Kings by the dozens.
We have been blessed with a great Kingfish year. We have posted a few of our April Kingfish pictures on " Fish Thumbnails 1". You can readily see here that there were no shortage of Smokers, and big Trophy Kings this year. Almost every day we had several in the high thirty's to low forty's. We have added the Calcutta 700 back with the Trinidad 30 for flashing purposes, and it has worked out great. Many times the Kings would be on the bottom in the mornings, and we would have to wait until our baits decended to the lower levels to get runs, but many days we increased our numbers by ten or twenty fish by flashing them to the top, and causing a feeding frenzy. The live bait worked well once in awhile, but the old stand-by frozen sardine, has gotten us most of our trophy's.
This year there hasn't been a great number of bait pods to congregate the Kings, so they have been spread out all over the Gulf. We are now just seeing a few bait pods starting to appear almost a month and a half late. So, we would gather from that, the rest of the fish will be coming with the bait pods this spring. This should make for a longer and better season.
The Dolphin have also been sighted early this year, and we are starting this week to fish them along with Blackfin Tuna. There have also been several Sailfish sighted in close this year. We are on the watch for them. It seems that seasonal fish have been fooled by the weather changes, and we have many fish we would not normally find at this time of year. We have seen a few Tarpon jump at Longboat pass already, although there aren't enough yet to fish them right now (April 22), we believe in the next week or two we may be blessed with the big pods.
Grouper have been slow coming back from mating this season until last week. They are starting to appear in their old feeding grounds in larger numbers now. Mangrove Snapper have been here this year in very good numbers and the sizes seem to be up considerably. Cobia have been here in the forty to fifty pound size in great numbers this month, and it seems they are still traveling, and may appear anywhere you are chumbing on a reef or wreck. We have caught several Blacktip Shark offshore already this year and most have been very large (140 to 150 pounders).
We have mounted a couple of the Blacktips for our customers, and several Trophy Kingfish. So, if you are looking for big trophy mounts, this is the time to come down and fish for them. The weather finally streightened out and is beautiful now, and the water is clear and most fish are ahead of season.
Bent rods and screaming reels, see ya on the water.
Captain RW
Design & Graphics by, BLUE WATER CONSULTANTS, Bradenton, Florida
Copyright 1996, 2001 by RW And Associates. All rights Reserved.