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The Charlotte
Harbor Experience
By: Capt.
Mark Miller & Capt. Jerry Cleffi
Charlotte Harbor, located in
Southwest Florida, is the second largest open water estuary
in the state. Measuring 30 miles long and seven miles wide,
it offers a total area of 270 square miles to experience.
Fed by three freshwater rivers (the Myakka, Peace, and
Caloosahatchee), this unique natural resource offers anglers
an unparalleled fishing experience.
As an avid tournament angler and
fishing guide, I rarely have a weekend without a charter or
tournament. So when the opportunity arose for a casual day
of fishing, I jumped at the chance. I called on my lifelong
friend and fishing partner, Capt. Jerry Cleffi, to see if he
would like to join the outing. Jerry is also a guide and a
professional tournament director managing fishing events
such as the Flatsmasters Tournament Series, The KayakSlam
Series, plus a host of charity events as well. It’s not
often our two schedules mesh, but as luck would have it,
Jerry had the day off as well. Excited at a chance to “hook
up” and spend a day on Charlotte Harbor, we settled on a
game plan.
Charlotte Harbor boasts a
multitude of fishing opportunities and on any given day many
location and specie choices are available. In Southwest
Florida, the big three are Tarpon, Snook, and Redfish. Since
it was early October, we skipped the Silver King as tarpon
season was drawing to a close and decided to concentrate on
Redfish and Snook. Jerry and I have spent many days stalking
redfish on the grass flats and casting the mangroves for the
elusive snook. It‘s one of our all-time favorite angling
adventures.
The day started off in the pre
dawn hours as we readied the boat and rigged the tackle for
what was to be a day of casting artificial lures in the
backcountry. Our goal was to be on the flats as the sun
cracked the horizon. Our timing was perfect as we ran down
the eastern shore of the harbor with just enough light to
make out the mangrove islands in the distance. With several
different boats at our disposal including two 22' bay boats,
today we chose to fish out of my 16' technical flats skiff,
a boat designed to draw very little water and can be push
poled silently across the flats.
Our first spot was an area with
many tidal creeks, which is a favorite feeding ground for
snook. It wasn’t long before my top water lure attracted the
first snook of the day and a nice linesider was released at
boat side. Several small snook later, Jerry suggested a move
to a back bay area we had scored well in a previous redfish
tournament. After just a few casts in our new spot Jerry was
rewarded with a quality 7-pound redfish. With Jerry tossing
small jerk bait and I continuing by top water assault, we
managed several more redfish, a couple more snook, and one
feisty trout and all before 9:00am!
We decided to target one more
spot and headed south to an area known as Two Pines. This
area is a maze of mangrove islands, tidal creeks, and gaps
(narrow areas between islands). The plan was to target these
gaps as the tide fell and the current was running hard. The
first couple of stops produced only a couple of spooked fish
and a shark that wasn’t hungry. As a final effort, I decided
to pole Jerry silently down one of the outer shorelines.
With herons wading around us and mullet splashing in the
shallows, I was able to spot a single redfish tailing in the
distance.
Redfish forage in extremely
shallow water grubbing out shrimp and crabs from the bottom.
Standing on their heads with their tails sticking out of the
water, they make an easy target. I eased the skiff within
casting distance as Jerry made a perfect cast at the tailing
red. Bumping his artificial shrimp slowly off the bottom,
the red swirled on it, and another Charlotte Harbor redfish
was hooked up. After a quick photo and release at boat side,
we decide to call it a day. It was another picture perfect
morning of backcountry fishing on Charlotte Harbor.
The Charlotte Harbor Estuary is
home to a multitude of fish species and wildlife and is one
of the few remaining pristine fisheries in Florida. Spend a
day experiencing the fishing our harbor has to offer and I
guarantee you’ll be hooked!
For more information
regarding backcountry fishing on Charlotte Harbor:
Capt. Mark Miller
Finomenal Fishing Charters
(941) 769-2491
Capt. Jerry Cleffi
Classic Tournaments, Inc.
(941) 637-5953
www.Flatsmasters.com
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