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1600 Harbor Drive South Venice Pier Anglers


By
Ruth Anderson


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 11' Tiger Shark on Nokomis Beach Florida:
Avoiding the Oil Slick?

An Eleven Foot Tiger Shark decided to go sun bathing on the Nokomis beach as of yesterday 05/28, 2010. Mote Marine officials concluded its appearance on the beach might be due to the offshore Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which now closes about twenty-five percent of all commercial Gulf of Mexico fishing or 60,683 square miles of the Gulf.

Gulf Closure Map

The Gulf of Mexico fishing closures now extend all the way to the west Florida shelf, The Blue water at the 200-meter line. This closed area is one of the most abundant commercial fishing areas found off the western coastline of Florida. The shelf is about 140 miles off Venice, Florida and extends northwestwards. The new “best guess” is between 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day are sluing into our Gulf marine environment establishing this oil spill as the largest in American history. That is nearly triple the amount spilled of the Exxon Valdez incident of 1989. Though to different monsters, it is still oil but of a higher grade. Considering our Tarpon travel some 125 miles offshore in their “Daisy Chaining” mating ritual, I wonder to what effect it will have on their migratory run and the offspring they deliver. I have talked to a number of area anglers, boat ramp owners and tackle shops and all have agreed we need to form an alliance to be prepared for the oncoming onslaught. As suggested by The Online Fisherman Team., we need an oil spill prevention plan. Just in case.

VENICE AREA REPORT May 26, 2010

The phrase, “A day late and a dollar short”, comes to mind when you go angling this week. If you find the bait, you find the fish, regardless of what you might be targeting, unless it is Tarpon. This time of year tarpon are oxygenating either in a daisy chain or just under the surface in chase for a meal. If using fingers, mullet’ suspended under a float of your choice, hook ups have been enamors this week from Boca, across to the beaches of Venice and off the Venice inlet. According to anglers out of The Crow’s Nest hook ups off Turtle beach on an out flow drifting dollar crabs are best. Tarpon, Sabalo, Megalops Atlanticus migration is in contrast to the phrase, except the Tarpon are a month late. Usually it is early spring when they show up and by June on the first flush of the new moon, dollar crabs are a smorgasbord to gulping fish.

Earlier in the week, trout and red action has been phenomenal! Added to that, monster snook are tearing up baits as well. The key to this action is in finding the bait. Snook Alley is really living up to its name around the docks at night. During the day, on an incoming tide, baits are forming around most any bar next to any shoreline with mangroves overlapping. Schools of croakers at one to two inches are thick as thieves at a convention, followed by whitebaits and threadfins. The are all under the trees or the docks. Moving out to the jetties to beach, beach snook are present everywhere and catching is as easy as upstanding there habitual awareness of the beach line. When casting hardware to live baits you must latterly cast down the beach, right off the waterline or backwash if you want more hook ups or wade out to get cool, cast up on the dry beach and slowly retrieve your bait in place of the wash line. People may laugh or snicker with phrases of ridicule but that will cease as you hook it up with that big one!

Back Bay sharks are acting as if it is April, not the beginning of June, as these Blacktips are cruising the shorelines behind the bait pods in search of those eating the bait. Schools of two and three foot sharks seem to dominate the shorelines of our southern bays, making one think as they wade in their waters. Funny thing is when caught on light tackle of the ten or twelve pound test variety, cut offs are emanate with an attacking set of jaws on a trout rig but sometimes you get lucky and one goes home for dinner.

Gafftop or Sailcat schools seem to be in tow with these shark packs. A weird year. Rolling pods of northbound tarpon are on a post-spawn, as any on the southern route are pre-spawn. Tarpon are everywhere! Problem is they to are a month late, as far as numbers are concerned. Bumping to rubbing fish display a rolling effect on the surface known as a “Daisy Chain.”  Most Daisy Chaining Tarpon move in a southern direction and in general are hard if not impossible to catch. On the other hand, the northbound fish are hungry.  They have finished the spawn and are on their way back to their normal haunts. There are plenty of northbound Tarpon sighted off the boards of the pier at Sharky’s.  In turn, a number of Tarpon have picked up shark baits off the bottom from those angling out on the boards. Tales of tails to head using the multiplier or the scales on the pier, Tarpon reaching over a hundred pounds fell as victims to the phrase “CPR”’ caught, photographed and released to the waters below. Mixed in are the occasional smokers showing up in search of a meal too. The shark bite at night is awesome.  If you are into shark angling, venture out onto the boards of the Venice City Pier at Sharky’s and you too might hook it up with the fish of a lifetime.

Weekend Outlook: Other than the crowds from Memorial Day Weekend, a situation of hungry tarpon attacking well-presented baits should occur as the first full moon of June is upon us! There is nothing “Normal” about Tarpon but if history repeats itself, this weekend should be hot in biting to fighting fish. Remember, in angling for Silverbacks the rolling fish are not the happy fish and bites are of a slow nature, while the ones below or on the bottom are happy and hungry.

”FISH ON!”