Finding and Catching Fish in Bull Bay, Charlotte Harbor

by John Kumiski

Bull Bay is an island-filled estuary lying on the northern side of Charlotte Harbor, located just to the west of where the entire harbor sweeps to the north to converge with the Peace and Caloosahatchee Rivers. The bay's outer, southern boundary is delineated by Bull Key and Little Cape Haze and its inner boundary- well, to the north there isn't any clear boundary. Mangrove turns to marsh and it gradually becomes dry land.

The entire bay is splattered with mangrove islands, which provide shelter from the most horrendous winds. Shallow grass flats, speckled with deeper potholes and punctuated by oyster bars, provide superb habitat for a veritable wealth of gamefish. Snook, redfish, seatrout, sometimes tarpon, even mangrove snapper, all reside here along with the omnipresent jacks and ladyfish. 

This article examines how to fish it in some detail.

TACKLE
Tackle needs are simple. Standard light tackle for the salt performs admirably here. A plug reel spooled with 12 pound line or spinning tackle loaded with ten pound test will work well. Use a thirty pound fluorocarbon shock tippet to attach your lures, which you will probably change through the day.

Any of the Florida favorites do the job- MirroLures, Rat-L-Traps, Bombers, Zara Spooks and others, the list of effective plugs is long.. Since the bay is generally rather shallow, a bait which doesn't go down very far is best. The shallow running DOA Bait Buster is often an excellent choice, as is their three inch Standard Shrimp. Soft plastic jerk baits like those put out DOA, Bass Assassin, RipTide, and many other manufacturers can also be very productive.

Small jigs with large plastic tails will cast well, won't sink fast, and catch a lot of fish. A bucktail jig tipped with a piece of shrimp can be deadly. You can also rig an Exude or a Jerk Worm with an offset 5/0 hook and have an effective lure which you can fish slowly and which is practically weedless, and errant casts into the bushes are easily recovered. In general I prefer lures with single hooks. They work very well and catch and release angling is much easier.

Fly fishermen will find nine foot rods in the seven- to nine-weight range useful, depending on their casting skill and the wind strength. Leaders should range from 9 to 12 feet long. Floating lines are standard- it's usually too shallow to use any other type. An excellent fly to try is the Clouser minnow, but fly selection is a very personal thing, and Deceivers, Seaducers, and the newer synthetic saltwater patterns all have their devotees. I've had excellent success with flies that incorporate rattles into their construction, especially when the water is discolored. The fish usually are not terribly fussy, and presentation is generally much more important than the pattern.

Be sure to use the 30 pound shock tippet- snook in particular have abrasive lips and sharp cutters on the gill covers.

WHEN TO GO
A couple of pieces of advice- visit www.terraserver.com or Google Earth and download an aerial photo of Bull Bay before heading out fishing. If you're going in for the first time, don't try to penetrate too deeply, unless you can mark your route with a GPS. Even at that, if the water drops on the tide you may not be able to get out the same way until the water comes back in.

As far as fishing, run into the bay on the rising tide, as early into the tide as you can. If you have anything else to do that day, get out again before it drops too far on the outgoing. The shallower areas can become bone dry on a good low tide. That's tough on the gel coat of your skiff.

The deeper holes sometimes fill with fish on extreme low tides. They could be a potential bonanza to an adventurous someone who could afford to wait for the water to come up again before he had to leave. If you can invest an entire day to wait out a low tide, it's really a good idea. Not only might you find a hole full of fish, but it's the only way you'll ever really learn the lay of the bottom. Bring a sketch pad and use your time to make notes, very important for future reference.

Keep in mind that sometimes there is only one tide per day here. Try to do your low tide exploring on a two tide day. If you intend to make sketches for future reference time your trip to coincide with the lowest possible tide.

Another very good suggestion is to fish here during the week, especially if the weather is good. You may have the entire bay to yourself under these circumstances. The bay's many islands provide shelter from high winds which sometimes make most of the rest of Charlotte Harbor unfishable. Most local anglers know this. Bull Bay draws quite a crowd when windy conditions prevail, especially on weekends.

A proven technique on outgoing tides is to find a slot on the outside of any of the bay's perimeter islands where there's a good outpouring of water. The gamefish come out with the water. The pickings can be almost too easy. In the shallow cuts you can see them moving out and sightfish to them. The deeper cuts require a blindcasting approach, using an attractor type lure such as a Rat-L-Trap. A jig tipped with a piece of shrimp is another sure producer.

Fishing in the bay is consistently good spring through fall. Not that it's not good in the winter- just that frequent passing fronts make success much less certain. Certainly you are much more likely to nail a nice snook back in here in the cooler months. Summer bay fishing for snook is not as good as spring or fall. Most of the bigger fish have love on their minds and are out in the passes. But reds and trout take up the slack, are plentiful, and reach impressive sizes. There will be plenty of smaller snook around, too.

Also, there's a possibility of cobia hiding under manatees, or working over a big sting ray, just at the bay's entrance in the spring. The occasional tarpon wanders in during the summer. You might say that the bay is indeed a four-season fishery.

FINDING FISH
When you get back into the bay, a maze of islands will face you. If you entered on a low rising tide, you have a choice of several options. If you can throw a castnet you may first want to fill your livewell with whitebait. Then when you first enter the bay, anchor or stake out along an eddy line and fling some of the baitfish out a few at a time for five minutes or so. If there are any hungry gamefish in the immediate vicinity you'll learn about it right away!

If the tide is low you also might want to look for deeper holes which may be holding fish. With more water head east and work your baits around the pilings by the remains of the stilt houses. Snook, redfish, and seatrout can all be found around these structures. Be careful you don't go too far east or you may slide out of a slot between some islands and end up in Turtle Bay, which is not a bad idea, either.

As the water comes up you may elect to drift with the wind while blind casting, or work with a pushpole or an electric motor along the shoreline and plug the mangroves. Until you learn your way around and find spots which consistently hold fish you definitely have to act like a hunter- use your boat and your knowledge of your quarry to search for fish. Also, keep your eyes and ears open. You can often find fish by seeing or hearing them. In the initial hunting phase keep all of your senses on alert.

One thing I've found when fishing in the bay is that the snook, usually thought of as hanging in close to cover, may be off the shoreline mangroves by ten or twenty feet, lying in white holes. This is especially true of the bigger fish. Again, tide level is critical here. If the water's high the fish can get back under the trees. On lower water they'll be out away from the bank. Redfish will sometimes hug the shoreline more tightly than the snook will, so don't be afraid to work what appears to be featureless open water.

Another good way to fish in the bay, especially if there's a lot of boat traffic, is by anchoring your boat in shallow water and getting out and wading. Wading can be especially effective if you've already located an area where there are some fish, but are having trouble getting close enough for a good presentation. When the bay fills up with boats the fish often become mighty spooky. The silent approach of a wading angler can then be deadly.

You can wade around any of the islands and see fish you never would have seen any other way. Look to see fish in the shallows, and cast blindly out into areas where visibility is poor. This is a particularly good technique for the fly fisher. Although the areas of the bay I've waded have had a nice firm bottom where wading was quite pleasant, always check the bottom firmness of any area you intend to wade with a pushpole before hopping out of the boat.

While wading Bull Bay I've more or less stumbled into holes that, while too deep to wade through, certainly would have held fish on lower tide phases. Mark places you discover like this in your mind, or better yet on your nautical chart. It's information like this that pays big dividends on future trips.

GETTING THERE
You'll find a good boat ramp just before the toll booth at the Gasparilla Causeway, in the town of Placida. Get there early or you may not find parking. Follow the channel markers south into Charlotte Harbor past Devilfish Key, then head east. The sandbar at the mouth of the bay will be clearly visible with good light conditions.

It's also possible to launch at one of several private ramps in Bokeelia on Pine Island. Heading north northwest across the harbor should put you close to the bay's entrance.

Regardless of where you launch, be sure to bring a compass and nautical chart of the area. A GPS can be very helpful. Charlotte Harbor is a sizable water body and it's easy to get confused while navigating.

Other boat ramps can be found at the following places:
-in Englewood off of CR 775;
-at the Pineland Marina on Pine Island, off of SR 767;
-at the Burnt Store Marina, on the east side of Charlotte Harbor, off of SR 765.

TACKLE SHOPS
Fishing Unlimited, an Orvis Shop on Boca Grande. (941)964-0907.
Boca Grande Outfitters , 375 Park Avenue, Boca Grande, Florida 33921, 941.964.2445 Lehr's Economy Tackle in Fort Myers, 941.995.2280
Shallow Water Outfitters in Punta Gorda. (941) 637-9989.

GUIDES
There a lot of good guides in this area. Here is a list of a few:
Captain Pete Greenan, www.floridaflyfishing.com, 941-923-6095
-Captain Phil O'Bannon (941) 964-0359
-Captain Tommy Locke (941) 766-9070

STATE PARKS AND OTHER ATTRACTIONS
Besides the fishing in Bull Bay, there are some other places in this area you might like to visit. Among them:
-Cayo Costa State Park, PO Box 1150, Boca Grande, 33921. (813)964-0375. Accessible only by boat, but a ferry runs out to the island from the Pineland Marina. Camping right on the Gulf of Mexico is the main attraction here. Fishing is literally at your doorstep.
-Gasparilla Island State Recreation Area, c/o Cayo Costa State Park. Access is via the Boca Grande Causeway (CR775).
-There is a restaurant on Cabbage Key in Pine Island Sound which is famous for its excellent lunches, and was the inspiration for the Jimmy Buffet song, "Hamburger in Paradise". It's an unusual and interesting place, which is worth a visit.
-The beaches in this area are famous for their shelling opportunities.

ACCOMMODATIONS
Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau, 800-338-6444.
Charlotte County Visitors Bureau, www.pureflorida.com, 941.743.1900.

This article was written by John Kumiski of John Kumiski Outdoors and Travel. Contact him at his website www.johnkumiski.com or via email at john@spottedtail.com. Copyright John Kumiski.

John Kumiski 's most recent fishing guidebooks are How and Where to Catch Redfish in the Indian River Lagoon System (Argonaut Publishing Company), and Fishing Florida's Space Coast (Argonaut Publishing Company).

John Kumiski's newest book is Redfish on the Fly- A Comprehensive Guide.

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Copyright © John Kumiski. 2007