Fort Myers Fishing Guide Captain Bill Curtis

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Fishing Into 2014

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Saturday, January 4, 2014, In : Fort Myers 
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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August 2013 Fort Myers Fishing Charter

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Monday, August 12, 2013, In : Fort Myers 
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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06-10-13 Fun Estero Bay Charter

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Tuesday, June 11, 2013, In : Fort Myers 
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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04-23-13 Fishing with my Buddy

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Wednesday, April 24, 2013, In : Fort Myers 
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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04-13 Charters Sharks, Redfish, and Snook

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Wednesday, April 24, 2013, In : Fort Myers 
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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04-15-13 Estero Bay Charter

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Tuesday, April 16, 2013, In : Fort Myers 
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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03-13-13 Afternoon Fishing Charter

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Friday, March 15, 2013, In : Fort Myers 
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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03-13-13 Morning Fishing Charter

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Friday, March 15, 2013, In : Fort Myers 
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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03-11-13 Fort Myers Nice Fish Charter

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Thursday, March 14, 2013, In : Fort Myers 
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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03-08-13 A Boy's Day On Estero Bay

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Tuesday, March 12, 2013, In : Fort Myers 
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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03-07-13 Cold Day On The Water

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Friday, March 8, 2013, In : Fort Myers 
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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02-28-13 Estero Bay Afternoon Charter

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Sunday, March 3, 2013, In : Fort Myers 
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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01-26-13 Fort Myers Charter Fishing Trip

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Wednesday, January 30, 2013, In : Fort Myers 

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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01-21-13 No School Fishing

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Wednesday, January 30, 2013, In : Fort Myers 

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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12-27-12 Cold Afternoon Estero Bay Charter

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Saturday, December 29, 2012, In : Fort Myers 
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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07-19-12 Estero Bay Father and Son Charter

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Sunday, July 29, 2012, In : Fort Myers 
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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4th Of July Week 2012

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Tuesday, July 10, 2012, In : Fort Myers 
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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06-01-12 Estero Bay Birthday Fishing Report

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Monday, June 4, 2012, In : Fort Myers 
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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05-14-12 Estero Bay Charter

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Thursday, May 24, 2012, In : Fort Myers 

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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05-18-12 Fort Myers Charter

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Monday, May 21, 2012, In : Fort Myers 

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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04-06-12 Family Fishing

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Tuesday, April 10, 2012, In : Fort Myers 

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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04-02-12 Great Estero Bay Charter

Posted by Captain Bill Curtis on Tuesday, April 3, 2012, In : Fort Myers 

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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