The Naples / Marco area has great access to kayak fishermen. There is an outfit that rents kayaks (including some hobies) from 7 different locations, including downtown Naples (Naples Bay), Isle of Capri, Everglades, Venitian Bay, and Gordon River. If you are there for a week, you wouldn't be able to cover all the water, or variety of species down there. Plus, the rental rates are very inexpensive compared to the north. In case anyone ever goes down there, here is the link:
The day after Christmas, I rented from downtown Naples and fished Naples Bay near Tin City - there are two big bridges there that I thought could be good for sheepshead. Before launching, I noticed a huge blitz of nice fish just between the launch and the first bridge - I figured that these were likely jack crevalle or spanish mackerel. So, I launched, and about 5 minutes after launching, I see the blitz explode again behind me. So, although I had a hobie, it wasn't a mirage drive so I paddled back and got one cast with my johnson minnow (gold spoon) in before the blitz disappated - three cranks of the reel and BAM - fish on. After a 10 minute fight, I landed a 26" jack crevalle, that was very angry. I forgot my camera, and didn't want to risk the phone getting knocked into the water after catching the big jack, so no pictures on that.
So, after this, I stayed close at the first bridge and decided to do some bait fishing for sheepshead. Although I had mole crabs (sand fleas), they weren't producing, so I tried shrimp. The shrimp was a little better, but it was really slow, and the water around the bridge was only about 4' even at the channel. My experience with sheepshead is that they like to be in water at least 10'. Well, I worked the pilings for about an hour, and had very little action. But, moving from piling to piling was the ticket, and I eventually caught a nice 17" sheepshead that put up a great fight. During this time, there were a few short blitzes at the same spot, but I could never get back in time. Later, I noticed some fiddler crabs crawling in the pilings, so I grabbed a couple and switched from using shrimp - this made a big difference. After 5 minutes, I got a strong bite, and I knew it was a sheepshead - I felt him bite aggressively, waited, and then felt the subtle weight on my line and set the hook hard - well, I though I was hung on the bottom, because the fish really wouldn't move, eventually, I got the fish to move, and it started taking line like crazy, and went through some very hard, bulldog tog-like runs - stop, run, stop, run, and my drag was screaming! So, I eventually get the fish up to the surface after a couple of minutes and discover it is a 20" sheepshead - caught it using a fiddler crab on one of my custom tog jigs.
The next day, I fished Venitian Bay in north Naples, but it was extremely windy, and I made a mistake by not going to somewhere that rented a hobie. Venitian Bay is very residential, but most of the condos are built on stilts - aka huge pilings - so I thought that this would be another good choice for sheepshead. At the dock, they sold shrimp, and the owner had pet snook around the dock to about 35" - big, sleek snook, but there is a moriatorium on them down there now after two hard winters, so I went after sheepshead. I went under a shopping mall, found some nice pilings, and within 4 minutes caught a nice sheepshead at around 17", so I thought it would be a good day - couldn't find too many sheepshead after that - had a nice one on that I lost, and very few bites after that (I'm told it was a little early there for sheepshead and prime is February). So, I switched gears and decided to drift and fish for speckled trout and redfish with shrimp jigs and gold spoons. The gold spoons didn't work, but I caught about 20 ladyfish on the shrimp jigs. The wind died down as I came back in, and that was the end of the fishing part of my trip.
Anyway, here are some pics of sheepshead and a ladyfish. Wish I took one of the jack now.
