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More Fishing and Boating

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• Seaworthy: Start the season right

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Sitting on the beach or gazing out your condo window at the flat peaceful blue waters stretching to the horizon west of Marco and Naples you’d never guess that you’re looking at a major highway.

No, it’s not a subterranean highway to Atlantis or the like but it is an “I-75” for the likes of several piscatorial pelagic species that use it religiously to swarm to summer and run from winter — just like clockwork.

Pelagic species (i.e. fish) that have no reef or bottom residence, such as king mackerel, cobia and tarpon take the highway north in the spring to summer in the tad cooler northern Gulf and then turn around with the first shiver of cold and head south to the waters off the Keys.

Just like our human snowbird population sans the accouterments!

This, twice a year piscatorial passage, is a big deal for those of us who fish. It’s an opportunity for a bonanza of big fish even for those who fish in the nearshore waters.

But like most situations in life, timing is everything.

As we enter this first week in October, you’ll hear the old timers telling the youngsters, “Any day now the fall run will begin. You better be ready.”

Charter captains act like cats on a hot tin roof trying to time the migration run with charters for their regulars. But it’s a total balancing act and you just never know. Sometimes what you think will be your big show day is an absolute dud and other times it takes your breath away.

Take for example a rather routine charter I had booked in mid-October a few years back for three guys down here at a business convention. They just wanted to fish. Anything that tugged on the other end of the line would be OK or so I thought when we booked via phone a few weeks earlier.

Anyhow, they showed up the morning of the charter with an entirely different bent. Egged on by one of the three, who you’d classify as a Florida fishing sharpie, I was drilled before even starting the engine on what we were targeting; how big would they be; what could they expect to take home and on and on.

Honesty is the best policy at moments like that and I gave them the rather mundane menu of some nice snapper; maybe a mackerel or two; a triggerfish and/or a flounder and, if we finished up fishing inside, maybe even a nice keeper redfish.

If they were downright rude they would have booed my soliloquy; but they were couth and politely stared down at their shoes. “Nothing better than that, huh, captain?”

“Just trying to be honest. That’s been our experience the last week or so.”

I quickly followed with a qualified appeasement, “But this is October and the fall run south of kings, cobia and tarpon, could start any day now. We might get into them today.”

They looked at me like I just offered them a piece of the Brooklyn Bridge with that “those charter guys will tell you anything” glare. And so off we went.

We ran down the beach to a good spot off Caxambas Pass, and true to prediction, in the midst of an endless school of thread herring working the surface, we were catching some nice 12’ to 14” mangrove snapper just off the bottom.

But the gang was noticeably sullen even with the strong strikes and fight the mangrove snapper gave on light tackle. Save a strike and landing of a docile Goliath grouper on the big rod, our day, to this point, had been totally dull for these guys.

But then, I saw it first.

The commotion was immense about a half mile north of our position. The water’s surface was being beaten into a frenzy while terns and gulls swooped in and out like fighter planes and circling high above were the ever watchful frigate birds.

And the commotion was moving towards us.

We picked up the gear, weighed anchor and headed to intercept the commotion. As we cut the engine about a hundred yards from the forward edge of the hullabaloo, the sharpie began to yell, “Sharks, thousands of sharks.”

And there beneath us, starkly visible in the clear water, where literally thousands of big cobia with huge rays mixed in heading south. It was a breathtaking moment and we were all transfixed with the enormous of the event.

When we gathered our senses, we fired up the engine and made a big loop around the school and headed for the Walton Reef which was right in their path and holding enormous schools of thread herring. We readied rods and live bait with the idea of being on the reef with our gear out when they arrived.

The only thing we didn’t know is whether the cobia would be feeding or just hell bent on getting south. We were soon to find out.

When the leading edge of the mega school reached the reef the resident bait schools went berserk. Bait was spraying in the air everywhere and the birds were on them in a heartbeat.

We watched the solid school of cobia go under the boat for what had to be five minutes. All kinds of surface action but our two baits on the big rods never got a bump. The sharpie wanted to loop the school and try again but it was obvious that the school was hightailing it to the winter grounds.

Exhilarated by the experience but disappointed in the results, we were about to take in the rods when they both went off simultaneously with strong strikes and hard runs. We pulled anchor and followed the fish working feverishly to keep the lines for tangling. The fight was arduous for the threesome as they switched rods back and forth.

We finally got the fish well separated and concentrated on the retrieve. When the leader cleared the water we got a look at two beautiful king mackerel that were apparently following the mega school and had scoffed up our baits. After a tussle we lip gaffed one for photographs and then released both.

As we ran for home they were somewhat apologetic for doubting the charter captains forecast of and the ensuing excitement of the fall run. And it was also obvious that the word dull had completely evaporated from their descriptive vocabulary.

•••

Species in the Spotlight

Name: Red drum — Redfish

In season: Available year round but more active as water cools in the fall.

Florida Regulations: Slot limit 18” to 27” with tail pinched. One fish per day. Open year around.

Habitat: Juveniles (up to 30 inches) are juvenile fish and frequent the backwaters near mangroves, docks and other cover. Adults (over 30 inches) move offshore join adult population and spawn from August to November.

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Capt. Bill Walsh owns an established Marco Island charter fishing business and holds a current U.S. Coast Guard license. Send comments or questions to dawnpatrolcharters@compuserve.com.