The last 2 days have been about as good as it gets with Fish n Tales Offshore Charters. Both days have been 10 hour dedicated grouper trips with returning customers. Just enough of a lite cool breeze kept the seas under 2’ and the boat just where I wanted it. Both days the fishing was great, with limits of red grouper including some pretty big ones in the mix. And we got our limits early enough so that we could target snapper, and my personal favorite, porgys. Trips made for great memories ...
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Limit of red grouper and a 30” gag, along with a few snapper. Great day with one of our favorite crews.





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We had a great 8 hour fishing charter this week with returning customers from the Vanderbilt Fishing Club. The highlight of the trip was a nice gag grouper that was asked home to dinner. We also caught lane, mangrove, and yellowtail snapper, along with a few porgys, and plenty of catch and release red grouper.


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Time to catch up the reports again, after another great couple of trips. We had one of my best trips so far on the offshore boat.



It was a ten hour trip and we got to head out where the big ones live, before the sun was even up.





We got the group a limit of red grouper with several of them over 30” and none under 24”.



We are still having to get out to deeper water to catch legal size fish over 20”, but when we get out there, they are chewing.





The gag grouper are still in close and we have ...
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The weather has been absolutely beautiful the last few weeks here is Southwest Florida and the fishing has been great. I have fished inshore in Estero Bay and offshore out of Ft. Myers beach. The inshore catches have been dominated by some nice sheepshead, including one of the biggest I’ve seen in the last couple of years. With the mild weather we’ve been having the scaled sardines have been available, except within a day or so of a cold front, which usually makes a big difference on how ...
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What a great few weeks it’s been with enjoying the holiday season and getting on the water almost every day. I’ve had quite a few inshore charters as well as a few offshore trips. The inshore bite has stayed fairly consistent with the exception of 1 trip, where even on that one we got a few fish for everyone on board. We are catching sheepshead under the docks, but not many that have grown enough to be keepers yet, as well as some nice black drum.



There are some Spanish mackerel around th...
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In spite of the dark water in the area from all of the fresh water releases the fishing continues to be excellent.



I have another couple of pictures with a bad setting, but the last photos are fixed.



We found quite a few redfish this week, and the snook have been feeding actively all day long.






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We don’t get to fish offshore much anymore, so we jumped at the chance to go out with the owner of one of the best offshore charter operations in the area. Bad weather cancelled the trip 3 weeks ago, so the anticipation for Sunday’s try was just over the top. I awoke about 5am to the sound of thunder and an immediate sense of dread. Luckily it was just a passing shower and so we were off to the marina a little early, where the father and son team were working together preparing the boat. ...
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I’m still on cloud nine sitting here writing at the computer after yesterday’s great fishing trip out of Fort Myers, topping off 4 straight days on the water fishing with the family and my buddy Scott the final day. It started Friday with us getting loaded up and heading down to my parents awesome house on Marco Island that is for rent and can be viewed here http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p995619.



We barely made it down before sunset but not quite. And I was even able to briefly ...
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What a great charter on Monday. The first time Canadian customers wanted to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary by treating themselves to a day on the water while staying in their vacation home here in sunny south west Florida. The day’s request for the 4 hour fishing charter was for action, not necessarily spending hours fighting any big fish. It was bit of a struggle obtaining any live bait for the day’s trip, but finally the third bait house I tried sold us about the last 50 shrim...
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While at the Carl Johnson Boat Ramp at Lover’s Key waiting on my clients Sunday morning, I met a couple of guys looking to fish as much as possible while they were together in Fort Myers. They were waiting on their Captain booked for the day, but wanted a charter Monday as well for which their Captain was not available.  I gave them a card and told them to call me that evening, as the 4 guys from Canada loaded my boat for their day’s adventure. We had an awesome day on Estero Bay, with th...
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Upon telling my good friend Scott about the previous day’s excellent charter and the fact that I thought about calling him to meet me, he said that’s it let’s go now. It took about 30 seconds for me to think about the snook bite we could find and I said OK, let’s do it. I had the boat loaded and met at the ramp in less than an hour at the bright and early hour of about 10:30am. The wind was up more than we had hoped as we sped across Estero Bay to the bait spot on the gulf side of For...
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I’m just getting a chance to catch up on the fishing reports from last week. I had several charters and they all went well. We have been fishing the near shore waters looking for tarpon and catching a ton of sharks, Spanish mackerel, trout, and whiting.



At times the bite has been crazy with up to 10 Sharpnose sharks around the boat, with a couple hooked, and spinner and bull sharks chasing and eating the mackerel we are catching, big fun.



Being able to catch nice bait every day is a big part...
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I had another good 4 hour charter on Estero Bay yesterday. The couple and first time customers are here visiting Fort Myers from the Buffalo area. We started the afternoon trip looking for some bait to capture with the castnet without any luck. No matter, the shrimp I had purchased that morning worked just fine. We spent the afternoon fishing in the back sections of the bay around the mangrove islands and oyster bars.



The best fish of the day was a nice slot redfish over 22”, and we also ca...
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The weather continues to warm as does the water temperature bringing in the hordes of baitfish and all the predators that follow them. This week we’ve seen the sheepshead bite continue to be steady yielding some filets for most of my customers who want them. Bait has been spotty but I’ve been netting some for most every charter including huge threadfin herring for one afternoon trip. I have also taken a few of our trips out in to the Gulf of Mexico looking for the start of the tarpon migr...
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The day was warming up some, but there was still a cool breeze blowing as my first time Canadian clients boarded the boat right on time for our 4 hour afternoon Fort Myers fishing charter. The tide was now flooding the Back Bay giving us access to the area we found some nice fish on Monday. So that’s where we went to start our fishing.  On the way we found a group of dolphins that played and jumped in the wake of the boat starting the trip off nicely. The first fish came pretty quick as a s...
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The cool morning 4 hour charter began with 2 sons, dad, and grandpa boarding the boat right on time at the boat ramp on Estero Bay. The livewell was chock full of live shrimp to use for bait throughout the day. The tide was extremely low and still headed out as we began fishing some deeper water. With not much more than a few nibbles at the first spots in New Pass, we headed south for a change down to Hickory Creek. The first fish came quickly, a hard fighting jack for one of the young men.



Fr...
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Monday’s scheduled 4 hour charter on Estero Bay in South West Florida started right on time with a couple of avid fisherman from Minnesota. We met at 9am at the Carl Johnson Boat Ramp at Lover’s Key and had the dolphins join us almost immediately as we headed for Big Carlos pass to look for bait to gather with the net. We looked inside the bay as well for bait and dropped a line in an area of grass flats where some pelicans were diving and finding some kind of small fish to eat. After a c...
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The Friday afternoon 4 hour charter was reserved way in advance, by a mom looking to create a very special day for her 7 year old son, on their Florida vacation. The weather was warming up nicely when I picked them up at the Carl Johnson Boat Ramp at Lover’s Key just before noon for our adventure on Estero Bay. First up was a quick look for whitebait to gather with the cast net. So we left the ramp and headed towards Big Carlos Pass, where we quickly came upon a group of dolphins who gave u...
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A cold day is a bit of an understatement by South West Florida standards. The temperature was still in the low 50s when I put the boat in the water for the 10am 6 hour charter. At least the wind eased up as the day went on as predicted. The day’s guests were the nicest people from Louisiana in town for a shelling festival on Sanibel. I figured it would be a struggle to find fish with the water temperature in the low 60s but we ended up having a pretty good day. Not a bite at the first spot,...
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I wasn’t sure how Thursday’s scheduled afternoon charter was going to go, mainly considering that my first time clients were meeting me at the ramp directly upon landing from the airport. To both of our relief, the travel went smoothly and on time, and we were idling away from the ramp by 2 pm for the 4 hour charter with Bob and his 13 year old son. It was nice to start a trip in the afternoon this time of year with a higher tide, and we immediately headed back to some mangrove shorelines...
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The Saturday charter with first time customers Rusty and JD started well. Everybody was right on time for our 10am departure from Punta Rassa, for our 6 hour trip. Then, within a few minutes I was able to net plenty of bait at the causeway without much searching in just 3 throws of the net. There didn’t seem to be any evidence of red tide like the week before as we started drifting some grass flats on the slowly incoming tide. Before long we were able to zero in on some trout hitting the sc...

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Friend Jason and I were lucky enough to be able to take our boys out fishing for a day, on a weekday when the boys were out of school on a holiday.

After getting the boat splashed and everybody picked up and situated we spent the first part of our adventure searching for bait. We had plenty of live shrimp, but still wanted to see if we could find some pilchards.

The red tide was bad in some areas, and when we finally netted bait at the tripod, most of it died pretty quick. With that we went...

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The afternoon charter for the day was with first timer Juergen and a couple of family members, all from Germany.  It hadn’t warmed up very much when I picked them up at the Carl Johnson Boat Ramp at Lover’s Key, but the tide continued to come in nicely. The bite was tough, but we fished a couple of the same spots as the day before, and there were a few fish still biting in the cold weather. The surprise and best fish of the day were a couple of nice snook , 1 fought and lost, but another ...
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Had a great charter on Tuesday with first time customer Jeff, in town for vacation. It was just the 2 of us as we left the dock at Lover’s Key just about the time the sun was peaking over the horizon. We started the day heading out of New Pass looking for the snook that have been pounding the bait along one of the shorelines. The tide was still swiftly running out, and there wasn’t any visible activity in the muddy looking dark water. So we were off to the beaches from there to hunt for b...
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I’m a little delayed getting this fishing report up, but I had to share what a great day we had. I met the first time clients, a father and son team, at Lover’s Key right at 7am for a half day trip.



I grabbed a few dozen decent shrimp from the baithouse and we left the dock quickly, looking to add some more likely baits to the livewell. On the still very low tide we managed to add a nice mixture of small pinfish, mojarro, pigfish, and whitebaits to our menagerie of live and artificial offe...
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Fished a couple days over the last week with family and friends in Estero Bay. While we saw some huge snook, all we could get to bite were some smaller versions.



A nice trout bite has helped get fish to the boat and smiles on the anglers though.





We have also had amazing dolphin experiences every time out over the last couple of weeks!

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With the kids out of school, after a great year, I was able to escape to the water, with just my son and nephew to Estero Bay for the day. It was also my Nephew’s birthday, so the days’ itinerary was all up to the kids. We started, per request, looking for some spotted sea trout by drifting shallow grass flats with live shrimp under popping corks. With not a bite, and a too fast drift anyhow, we idled to a nearby point where we got the fish catching started. Several snapper came to the bo...
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Fishing with me last Monday was Tim and Sue from Valparaiso, IN. Bait for the day was live shrimp, and large threadfin herrings caught that morning, before the trip, at the Big Carlos Causeway.

We had a great day with lots of small fish caught, and a nice break at The Fish House restaurant for lunch.

The giant threadfins we were using for bait got a good bit of attention, but the unknown fish chasing them just couldn’t quite seem to get them down. There was one nice size snook, that we sa...

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I had returning customers and friends on the boat Friday. We met on the already warm morning about 8am at the boat ramp at Lover’s Key, which is just south of Fort Myers Beach. The boat was already loaded with bait for the full day trip, plenty of frozen threadfins and shrimp from previous trips, very decent sized live shrimp for this time of year, and both livewells brimming with fresh caught small to medium sized threadfin herrings. Once everyone and everything was loaded and secured ...

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I was able to share a great day on the water with the family and a good friend over the weekend. The trip started out of Weeks Fish Camp where a nest full of ospreys hollered at us the entire time it took us to launch the boat.

Our first stop was to pick up our friend Scott at the Big Carlos Bridge, as he couldn’t spend the whole day with us, and it’s a good central location for a quick drop off. With everyone on board we headed to the beaches of Lover’s Key in search for bait, where Sco...
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With the holiday weekend approaching and the whole family having a day off together, we made grand plans for my better half’s first fishing trip in over a month. The plan was to head down to Chockoloskee, and fish some near shore wrecks, as well as look for tarpon in Everglades National Park. Well, that plan went down the drain as my better half heard forecasts of 40mph winds associated with a cold front pushing through South Florida into Friday morning. With that, our hopes were that the b...

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I received a call from a returning customer on Sunday, and luckily enough for both of us, we were able to schedule an early half day trip the next morning. I met Gus and his son at the ramp at Lover’s Key just as the sun was breaking the horizon. Glass calm conditions greeted us as we got up on plane and headed out of Big Carlos Pass to look for bait. A pod of dolphins sidetracked us for a few minutes with some good antics before we made the rest of the run to the beach. A small swell was c...

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Our Saturday fishing trip started late in the day after a full morning. Good buddy Scott Riddle was able to join my boy, nephew, and myself for a quick trip to Estero Bay in Fort Myers Florida, for Scott’s first chance to get on the water in some time. The afternoon breeze was blowing fairly hard as we headed out without any shrimp, and plenty of anxious anglers. So we decided to look around New Pass for some bait, and it was quickly obvious that we weren’t going to be able to look for an...

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I had a great family charter on Monday. We departed the ramp at Punta Rassa, at the base of the Sanibel bridge, in Ft.Myers with several dozen shrimp, Grandma, Grandpa, Dad, brother, and sister, all from typically cold locals this time of year up north.
 
A beautiful calm day greeted us as we headed towards the tip of Sanibel. As hoped, we quickly found a pod of playful dolphins that put on a nice show for us, jumping and playing in the wake of the boat, before we moved on. We fished shrimp on ...

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Finally getting to sit down and put together the latest fishing report after a crazy week. It was the third day in a row of inshore fishing for my son and I, during his spring break. Joining us on the Wednesday morning adventure were another cousin/nephew and a buddy of mine and his young son. As we worked our way out of Weeks Fish Camp loaded with shrimp, and an exuberant crew, a gorgeous heron saw us off. 

We motored to some nearby grass flats and got everybody rigged for some trout fishing....
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