I had charters on both of the coldest days of the year here on Estero bay in Fort Myers Florida. Tuesday’s trip was by far the colder of the days, but the fishing was better. We fished a full day and caught a good bunch of keeper sheepshead with a bunch of shorts.



We also caught quite a few jack crevalles, ladyfish and small mangrove snapper, along with 1 nice big spotted sea trout.



One of the guys also caught a pretty big stingray, which gave us some great excitement for the trip. As we had to quickly pull the anchor and chase the big ray down before it spooled all of the 12# monofilament line from the reel. The crew and I had an all-around great day and they were all smiles as I cleaned the catch at the ramp and we said our goodbyes.




Wednesday’s trip was an afternoon 4 hour charter that I had high expectations for. The bite the day before was pretty good considering the cold weather and it was forecast to be quite a bit warmer. Unfortunately the water temperature had dropped another 5 degrees and the fish we found the day before in shallow water were gone except for one lone small snook that ate a shrimp bounced along the bottom. So, we fished the deeper waters around the passes and caught a bunch of fish anyway. The father and son teams times 2 got the hang of sheepshead fishing and landed a bunch, along with jacks, snapper and ladyfish to make their memories on the water in Estero Bay.

I finished the week on Friday taking the family fishing to Everglades National Park out of Outdoor Resorts on Chockoloskee Island. The water temps were still down and the wind was up, but it was a beautiful winter/spring day to be in the park. We caught a ton of small fish, my better half got the lone redfish of the day, and my nephew caught a nice sea trout before we called it a day and headed to my parents camp and trailer in Ochoppee at the “Swamp Ape Headquarters” where we stayed the night.