Well hurricane Ian has come and gone in the Bradenton & Anna Maria Island. Ian definitely left its mark but we got very lucky that it took a turn south in the last day as it was approaching Florida. We did not have a direct hit. Fort Myers was where the eye of the storm ended up coming ashore as a strong category 4 hurricane. This made for catastrophic damage in Fort Myers and south to Naples with 150 mph winds and a 10 plus foot storm surge. This will take a while for Fort Myers and Naples to recover from this and bring things back to as normal as possible. We got lucky and got very little storm surge from hurricane Ian but we did get quite a bit of rain and strong 50 plus mph winds with gusts up to 100 mph. This was quite the experience to go through and we are very lucky as a community to have minimal damages and not too many power outages. We will be back on the water by the weekend and will be running fishing charters early next week. This weekend we will be out checking out the fishing areas and making sure to mark new hazards that appeared from hurricane Ian.

The fishing before the storm was about as good as fall fishing can get in Tampa Bay. There are quite a few schools of over slot sized breeder redfish roaming the grass flats of lower Tampa Bay. Finding a school of these fish when they are hungry has made for quite a few days of epic fishing and sore arms. We are using live and cut baits for these fish and some days even on our half day inshore fishing charters we are catching 10+ reds along with other species of fish. Since most of the redfish have been too large to keep. We are also focusing our efforts on some of the deeper grass flats at the mouth of Terra Cia bay and in the Sarasota bay catching spotted seatrout, Spanish mackerel, and mangrove snapper which are all phenomenal eating fish. Mixed in with those fish are jack crevelle and ladyfish which are great fun to catch and can provide great action as they are usually in large schools this time of year. We are starting to spend some time fishing the rock piles in Tampa bay and Sarasota bay in search of gag groupers. These are some of the tastiest fish that our bay has to offer and they are moving into the bay as the water temps start to cool down. We anchor on the pile and use live baits and also we troll some areas depending on conditions for the day. Gag groupers are one of the hardest fighting fishing in the bay and the larger legal sized 24+ inch fish will test your skills once they are hooked and try to get back into their hole. There are days we go through quite a bit of tackle trying to wrestle these fish up.

As you can see we have a good amount of options to choose from this time of year and that’s what makes it my favorite, especially our inshore fishing charters. Now that hurricane Ian is gone we will be back up and running so give me a call or text 813-220-8725 to book a charter. You can also book direct through my website: https://www.onamissionfishing.com/