As I write this, Southwest Florida is in the midst of its first real cold front of the season. Last night we had a record low of 46 degrees. Just a few days ago we were having record high temperatures in the 90’s. Things sure can switch around weather wise in a hurry. I had to go digging for my Gor-Tex jacket and bibs along with gloves and a hooded sweatshirt. Time to put away the flip flops and get out the boat shoes!
To make things interesting I had a fishing charter right in the middle of the change. Before the front moved in bait was easy to find along the beaches and the bite was steady for days, both in the backcountry and in the Gulf. I guess the fish could sense the change in barometric pressure and knew it was time to fatten up for the impending bad weather.
On my charter day the front had passed through the area. The morning temperature had fallen to 52 degrees and the winds were gusting out of the north at 25 miles an hour, which makes it feel like 40 degrees on the water. The low tide was a scheduled negative low at about 7:30 in the morning but the winds kept pushing the water out until about 10 AM and made for a low tide that exposed sand and oyster bars that I hadn’t seen since last winter. The game plan had to be seriously modified or perhaps not go at all.
My anglers arrived at the marina and I gave them the “lack of bait” and small craft advisory report and asked them how badly they really wanted to do this. The vote was to go if we could, stay in the backcountry out of the wind as much as possible and throw artificials if needed. I decided to give it a go and bought 100 shrimp as a backup plan.
I like fishing with live shiners and threadfin herrings and I often forget just how effective live shrimp can be. I tend to feel that a live swimming bait is going to catch the bigger fish while shrimp will attract only the smaller species. That’s really not true at all. Thinking back over the years, I’ve seen some pretty spectacular catches on shrimp. After all, they are native to our waters and I’m sure they are a major part of most game fish diets. The biggest redfish I ever caught was on a shrimp and jig combo.
We headed off to the north end of Estero Bay. The idea was to fish the many cuts found in the area around the oyster bars. There was so little water due to the low tide and wind that I figured the fish would have to be in those cuts. Heck, there wasn’t enough water anywhere else for them to swim in! The hunch paid off in a big way.
We used nothing but shrimp for bait and rigged them on small yellow 1/4 ounce jig heads. The guys cast them near oyster bar points and in the deepest cuts and then worked them back nice and slow over the bottom. During the course of the day they caught over 30 snook including two slot fish, a couple of nice redfish, keeper trout, a dozen keeper sheepshead, a small gag grouper, scads of mangrove snapper and more than our share of catfish. We had constant action for most of the day and we arrived back at the dock with smiles on our faces and dinner in the box.
The valuable lesson here is don’t be afraid to change gears when things get tough and don’t be afraid to put live shrimp in the well as a go-to bait. As we move further and further into the winter months live shrimp should become part of your game plan. They area easy to get and easy to use.
Best of luck!
Capt. Rob Modys
SoulMate Charters
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