    
Capt. Merrily Dunn
Unregistered guest
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Votes: 1 | | Posted on Sunday, July 01, 2001 - 12:33 pm: | |
Subject: Fishing Report for Sarasota/Bradenton, FL WE 6/30/
Fishing Report for Sarasota/Bradenton, WE 6/30/01:
Our week started out with thunderstorms all day long but we are actually thankful for the much needed rain. After all, if we don't get rain to keep the chance of fires way down, we might get another Fourth of July without fireworks and wouldn't that be very disappointing!
Fishing for tarpon hasn't exactly been exploding this week but a few fish have been hooked and boated along the Casey Key beaches of Sarasota. Tuesday I fished a group with Capt. Jeff Olsen. He had aboard the Hook'em & Book'em, Helen and Eric Dembinski of Connecticut. While I fished with their father, Tom and grandma, Sarah of Sarasota. My group started off of Grassy Point and the kids were up a little north along Turtle Beach. We both had fish all over the place early in the morning but neither group could find a fish to bite. We tried crabs, threadfins, pinfish, MirroLures and DOA Swimming Mullets and DOA Jumbo Shrimp but with no bites for our efforts. It wasn't until around 10:30 a.m. that we moved up to hang near Jeff that we found a northbound school. Sarah and Tom both threw threadfins in the path of the school and Sarah exclaimed, "I've got one!" She had indeed hooked into about a 90 pounder that she fought for around 45 minutes until the 80 lb. fluorocarbon leader was worn through. Sarah didn't mind because she said she was going to let it go anyway. With crabs now being scarce and at a high price when you can buy them, on Wednesday Porter Harris and I threw the DOA Swimming Mullet at tarpon along the Turtle Beach portion of Siesta Key. The early morning stillness might have been some of the problem with hooking into fish because it seemed like they could really sense our presence. By 8:45 a.m. Porter threw to a southbound school and intercepted one that chomped on the big bait. He had been jigging it using the big Star rod with a Penn 750, which was quite a chore. A disappointing 50 minutes later he lost the fish when the 80 lb. leader was worn through. So far, we've lost two nice fish because we lightened up on the leader...back to the 100 lb. size! Thursday's outing for fly fisher Ted Tafaro of New Jersey started out with fish holding close to the beach at the old Midnight Pass between Siesta Key and Casey Key. We figured they hadn't been told the Pass has been closed since 1977 but I suppose in tarpon terms perhaps some of those fish are just coming back from South America! Anyway, Ted had a few good shots at some slow schools but perhaps the fly color wasn't the right choice that morning. We worked hard to find schools that would slow down. We have also noticed that there are more and more northbound schools than early last week. I took a day off with my boyfriend and new Captain, Terry Simmons on Friday and literally hovered around a crab pot just south of the Point of Rocks along Siesta Key. We had fish all around us and Terry hooked into a nice 80 pounder using the DOA Swimming Mullet. He was in the process of telling me that he thought he was working the lure a little bit too aggressively (in hopes of a hook up) when he met a great resistance and his tarpon leaped into the air! You should have seen his face. In fact he was just about as surprised as Porter had been but we ended up boating Terry's fish. Better go for that 100 lb. leader because they really take that bait down inside their mouths. I also took Terry for some beach snook action and he caught and released a nice 26" fish using a threadfin and a smaller one using a DOA shrimp.
There are a few more weeks of tarpon fishing left and just a couple of days still open. After the tarpon are gone I'll be concentrating on early morning and evening snook fishing under the lighted docks because it is getting too hot for daytime. Let's hope the thunderstorms won't keep us off the water too much. Contact me for dates and rates at ReelSaltyLady@cs.com
Tight lines and solid hookups,
Capt. Merrily Dunn
GameFish-her Guide Service
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