Saltwater Fishing Fort Myers Florida

I will be explaining how to fish in the flats, the mangroves, and in the bay around Fort Myers Florida. Now this will be directed to fishing in Fort Myers but the same basics apply almost everywhere in Florida when you are saltwater fishing. There are many types of fish that you can catch while fishing by mangroves, some of the big names are snook, redfish, snapper and speckled trout.

There are many other types of fish that love to hang around mangroves also, like mullet and sheepshead, but I will only be explaining how to catch these types. No matter what, you will wind up catching other types of fish too that you may not want, like catfish, blow fish, sting rays, sharks, barracuda. The choice is up to you whether you want to keep them or release them, just please be aware of the local laws and make sure you have a fishing license if you fall in the category to have one.

Now let me get to catching fish in the bays and flats of Fort Myers Florida, the first thing that will help you out a lot is a boat. It is not absolutely necessary to have a boat but you can cover a lot more ground with one, and it will greatly increase your chances of catching more fish. If you have a boat, a GPS or fish finder will also help you, since you will be in relatively shallow water, you will want to look for big drops or holes by mangroves, these are almost always populated with snook and red fish.

A trolling motor will help out greatly too so you do not spook the fish when you are getting close into shore, snook and many other types of fish will run when they hear a loud motor coming towards them. So just about anywhere there are mangroves there is more than likely fish around them, but you will want to find some secluded areas, meaning not in a canal where there are boats that are going in and out all day and all night.

The fishing tackle that I use when I am fishing in Fort Myers, is a medium sized rod with about 15 pound test and a 35 pound leader line. I do not go above this pound test because that will be getting close to the range that snook and redfish will be able to see the line with no problem. My bait of choice is medium to large greenbacks, alive, my second bait of choice would be live shrimp.

I keep the leader line about 2 to 3 feet, and I put one medium sized split shot weight about 6 inches above the hook. I also use a popping cork, which will attract the fish to it if you do the popping correctly. When I see the cork go under the water I wait 1 to 2 seconds and then I set the hook hard, this will give the fish enough time to get the bait in their mouth, if you set the hook too soon you will miss them every time.

I make sure that I always have a net on board so that I can scoop the snook or redfish into the boat, I have lost many of fish from trying to get the fish in the boat by lifting the line out of the water. Remember anywhere that there are current changes, water temperature changes or big drops in depths of water there are likely to be some fish there. Not only does this go for fishing Fort Myers flats but it goes for anywhere in Florida, happy fishing.