Venice FL Fishing Report 7/18

Capt Van 9I do apologize for my tardiness but I’ve been busy and slipped up. Thank you for your patience and support; fishing and business are great. I do have plenty of open dates but they frequently book up at the last minute and keep me out of mischief. I’m doing a lot of children’s trips these days and prefer them. While I’ll still fish adults the kids boating, wildlife, and fishing trips are for less then adult trips. So ask and let me know your needs. On kid’s trips we do what they want; not adult fishing! Please be sure the camera batters are charged because these adventures are family memories to cherish! These trips are treasures for all of us.

We still enjoyed some awesome tarpon action on Monday and Tuesday with Paige from Nashville. We didn’t land them like we wanted but we hooked and fought several fish and were surrounded by schools of tarpon most of our trips. The fish were all sizes and slow moving schools that looked impressive. They bit good early on crabs and slowed with the brighter sunshine. We frequently had several schools of a hundred or more silver kings surrounding us. The issue was which school to try; boats were not a problem until later in the day when rookies arrived. These fish are not dependable now but we can stumble into hot action and you can’t catch fish if ya don’t try?

Snook action is slowed way down but still plenty of smaller fish; perfect for many of the younger children that have blessed me with their company. These kids are so inspirational with their joy and smiles. Kids trips are the very best fishing available because of their energy and innocence, just beautiful. I do expect much better action with better tides soon. Remember that it’s time to lock in your dates if you are going to take advantage of the September opening for harvest!

Redfish and trout are available down in Charlotte Harbor but challenging in Lemon Bay right now because of all the rain runoff we have. It’s rained over two feet here in about six weeks! If you want a longer six hour trip we can go down and chase em but not in four hours.

Minnow are abundant but still very small! With luck they will grow up and stay around for Fall fishing? You must use a ¼ in net! Weather is crazy and different every few days. Rains have been early and or late, some days light others down pours. The over cast is great and very comfortable.

Snapper are smaller but everywhere right now. I pan fried one up for lunch it was great. Spanish mackerel are due to drop in here soon? No way to know when but I’m hearing about good action around Tampa Bay already and few are here now.

Again I’m sorry to neglect this but will see about getting back on track. I’m writing a couple of weekly columns again and it’s great to be communicating to more folks like you. Thank you, Captain Van Hubbard <www.captvan.com>

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