Weather goes through its cycles

The angling situation lately reminds me of the Carly Simon tune "Anticipation."

After a long, hot summer and a great deal of anticipation for the first cooler weather of the fall, the weather came and went and came again. The cold front of last week dropped water temperatures in a quantum fashion. In fact there was a drop of nearly 20 degrees after a couple of nights of downright cold, windy weather.

Of course, I am talking surface water temperatures, as my thermometer is in the bottom machine transducer mounted just below the surface. Surface water temperatures can fluctuate wildly in our relatively shallow waters. As of today the readings on the machine were back up to around 75 degrees and that level is optimum for great fall action for nearly everything that swims.

When things settle and we get back to decent four tide days, the action should be off the charts. We have been anticipating this big blitz for weeks now but things are a bit slow off the starting blocks so far.

My charters last week produced a variety of species both inshore and off the beaches. The laundry list includes kingfish, spanish macks, bonito, shark, grouper, snapper and flounder out in the Gulf. Inshore, the catch has included trout, snook, reds, bluefish, jacks and ladies, but there just has not been many big number catches of any one species.

One interesting note was catching several nice snook and redfish on Saturday after we gave up using live bait and switched to soaking fresh cut snakefish and pinfish at the bottom of the tide. Hopefully the bulk of the pelagic run is still on the way and the appetites of the numerous inshore species we have been seeing is yet to pick up substantially before the hard cold weather settles in to our area.

Good luck and good fishing. Be careful out there!

Capt. "Zach" Zacharias

(941) 795-5026

E-mail: zachap@aol.com

Docked on Palma Sola Bay at Parrot Cove Marina/Sunny Shores

115th Street West and 36th Avenue, Cortez, FL 34215