Gonna take the misses over to Captiva for our anniversary next week. I rented a cottage on the beach for a few days to spend some quality down time. Since she likes to sleep in and I don't I figured I'd take a couple rods with me and fish the 1st couple hours after daybreak along the beach. Of all the fishing I've done over the years I've never fished from the beach. I've been doing a little reading to get a feel for what I need for tackle and technique but wanted to get as much input as possible. I'm not gonna mess with any bait at all. I love topwater but not sure if that's the way to go. I've read that some guys prefer a white bucktail. Any of you guys spend any time fishing the beach around there? Any advice you want to throw out? I'm mainly looking for snook, reds, trout and such. Not bringing the gear to do any shark fishing. Thanks for any advice guys.
I believe its a little late for the snook up on the beaches. Tossing a jig into the surf at daybreak is the way to catch them, though. I always wade out waist deep and throw back laterally to the shore line
On the south side of Upper Captiva pass, on the bay side during the outgoing tide, there are some bigs reds that sit just +/- 20 off the shore waiting for that strong tide to bring them some lunch. We were fishing on the bottom w/ frozen shrimp and cut lady fish. We fish right next to the docks and boat slips. My buddy had good luck fishing the seawall at Redfish Pass as well w/ topwater. That should be easier to access for you. Most of our topwater action in that area is done in the Pine Island Sound but from the boat.
Dony1,
My wife and I used to go stay at South Sea Resort every year and I've fished some of that area in the early morning hours with moderate to great success. The best spot I've found is the Redfish Pass but I'm not sure how difficult or easy it is to get there if you are not a guest of the resort. Other areas I've fish are beaches on the Gulf side and fishing there can be good too and is much easier to get access. Most beaches in that area is full of sunbathers during the day but is empty early mornings and I was never asked to leave.
The first thing is to fish when the water is moving fast in or out as slack tide is usually very quiet. You also want to see where the troughs and cuts are located as fish and baits will concentrate in those areas. Always lookout for bait fish and diving birds as thats where large fish will be. I've caught snooks, redfish, jacks and trout out there but have also hooked into tarpons and a shark. On quiet mornings you can sometimes see and cast to large fish just crusing off the beach. One time I reeled in 3 snooks in about 15 minutes from a small break in the sandbar just about 80 feet off the shore where they were waiting for bait fish to wash by. I could see them from the beach when the sun came up. The ideas situation is where you have calm flat water at sunrise about 1 hour after high tide where the water level is still high but is moving out fast.
I used long rods to get distance and reels with lots of line. I typically used 7 1/2' fast action rod with 200+ yards of 15 or 17 lb. line. I tried various jigs, plastic shrimp, Mirrolures, spoons, etc. but settled down to just 3/4 oz flathead bucktail jig with 5" white curlytail worm or 3-4" DOA shrimp for most situations. Whatever you use you want it to be as weedless as possible as there are lots of floating weed.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
I've got my rods set up with 12 lb braid and usually use 40 lb fluoro for a leader so hopefully I should be good. I'll probably throw some topwater right at sunup the 1st morning just because and change over to a mirrodine or jig after a bit. Gonna have 3 mornings to give it a try. I'm already set on any tackle so I'll probably just set up 1 small box for the trip.Maybe a couple tubs of Gulp shrimp. We'll be right down the beach from South Seas at Tween Waters kc. I'm sure I'll mosey down the beach that way. Thanks again guys.
