Contributing Writer Capt. Gregg Mckee
Wildfly Fishing Charters
Welcome to August in Southwest Florida. If you're new to the area and hoping that it might start getting a bit cooler after our record-setting July, I've got bad news. It's about to get so much worse. You can continue to expect it to be in the 90's by lunchtime every day along with some dangerous heat indexes.
But that's what the swimming pool was invented for and most of you chose to come here, so toughen up. Besides, the dangerous afternoon thunderstorms usually drop the temps down a few degrees for a short amount of time each afternoon.
I can give you one bit of good news about the late summer. The fishing gets even better, especially for tarpon. So far this year we've had one of the best summer seasons for them that I've ever experienced here on Pine Island. The year started off great with the migratory schools arriving right on schedule out in Pine Island Sound at the beginning of April.
Unfortunately, the smaller fish thinned out or were no shows at some of their regular spots around my home base on Matlacha. I'm going to give our recent hurricanes from 2024 the blame for pushing some of the resident tarpon to parts unknown, at least for now. I don't have any other theories about that except I'm using this as an excuse to spend more time exploring and hoping to track them down.
It's a great big Gulf of America out there.
The early season tarpon that did pour through in June were a little easier to feed with the fly rod than usual. This was a very welcome change. We had an absolute blast chasing them and my customers were rarely disappointed with the shots they got. I did have several trips where I was banging my head against my fly box trying to find a pattern that would get an eat. "They don't get that big by being stupid," was a line I repeated a lot after watching a huge tarpon briefly follow a fly and then slowly turn away fromt it right under the bow. This happened a lot, especially up in Charlotte Harbor, but their sheer numbers really drove home how great and consistent our tarpon fishery still remains after all these years.
At the end of June, the few pods of juveniles I could find really started eating. That's not unexpected with the smaller fish, since it take a lot of calories to become a 200lb tarpon. By early July, it was off the charts at a couple of my favorite spots in Pine Island Sound. We had several mornings with a half dozen small tarpon in the air, all on very light fly rods.
The fish in the photo came from shorelines just a few minutes from Pineland. It was on one of those perfect mornings when they were blasting glass minnows right against the mangroves and didn't care about what there were hitting.
I also got to go out with some new anglers for the first time in quite a while at the height of season this year. One new guy who came from out west was so thrilled with our area that he bought a place on Matlacha at the end of his week.
He'll be a great neighbor, and will bring plenty of his Montana fly fishing buddies to our backyard. I'm actually surprised with the amount of folks who are still coming down to fish after the beating we took over the last hurricane seasons. Can't complain about that.
So this has been shorter column than usual this month since free time has been in short supply lately. If you're a full timer in SW Florida, get out there early and hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. If you can't find the tarpon, give me a call. I've got some breathing room in August and it's a great time to chase them.
I don't nail the tarpon every day, but I can usually get you a good shot or two. Best of luck out there.
Capt. Gregg Mckee
Wildfly Fishing Charters
Matlacha, Florida
