More All

• Talkin’ Turkey: the turkey, the pilgrims and the noble bird of Collier County
• Turkey trivia test your wish bone
• How chefs celebrate Thanksgiving

Tell us about it

• What would you add to this story? Tell us what we missed.
• Do you have photos from this event? Documents we need to see? Share with us.
• Upload photos & videos
• More ways to get your stuff online and in the paper.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

Share and Enjoy [?]

Southwest Florida anglers continue to find productive fishing on most all fishing fronts.

Our offshore waters, from 60-feet out, have and will continue to offer some nice size grouper intermingled with several species of snapper that include mangrove, lane and yellowtail. The trick of it all is finding keeper size fish.

Naples Fishing Club member Ray Russell sums it all up in his recent e-mail.

“Hi Red, Bill Schmidt, Lew Williams and I took an offshore grouper grabbing trip aboard my boat Perfect Match. While we managed to catch 35 to 40 grouper intermingled with snapper, grunts and porgies most of the grouper were undersized.

“We covered several areas in 60- to 70-feet of water. We are all members of the Naples Fishing Club offshore fishing team.

“Attached picture is of Lew Williams holding two of the keeper sized red grouper, one measuring just over 27-inches.

“My boat is a 34-foot Pursuit Express cruiser.”

Thanks for the picture and report Ray.

I have noted several times in previous articles the ratio of total grouper caught to the number of keeper size grouper, to the number and other species caught, will run as high or higher then the ones in Ray’s report. I do not see how this will change unless we add some really large protected fish havens built from non-polluting debris.

In the meantime, anglers going offshore will have to plan their trip carefully and be equipped to target additional species if they are interested in bringing something home for the dinner table.

While fresh cut bait including mullet, squid and minnows can work for the bottom fishing, setting rigs out with live bait closer to the surface can give you an added edge in other species — such as amberjack, cobia and shark. Not to be left out, chum, and lots of it, should target both the bottom and near surface. Setting a chum tube or bag near the surface near the bow will allow the chum to sink slowly and be deeper by the time it gets to the stern where all the grouper grabbers are fishing.

Last but not least, trolling deep running lures over the honey holes can attract the larger grouper off the bottom. I have caught grouper trolling in excess of 70-feet of water. Don’t be surprised if a big snapper beat the grouper to the lure.

Anglers wanting to catch more keeper size fish in the future will have to expand their game plan and start a movement to add more fish havens, half of which should be protected.

Our inland and outer shoreline will continue to challenge anglers through August due to the amount of fresh water and high water temperatures. Early morning and late afternoon with a strong tide will be best for the long list of species including snook, redfish, snapper, ladyfish, some trout, jack, shark, tarpon from 20 to in excess of 60 pounds.

The list of methods and baits is a long one that includes live shrimp, minnows, crabs, pinfish, small mullet, ladyfish and jack. The early bird angler should have a ball catching and releasing snook using a slow sinking or crank lure. The angler should be anchored at a high falling tide at their favorite spot armed with their favorite baits.

Fishing live bait at the deep holes, if you can find them, during the change of tide just might get you into some hot snook fishing and releasing as they are protected in our area until Sept. 1.

Back to the past, it is a good bet many of you saw the picture of Speed Menefee in the Sunday edition of ETC. It was one of several pictures with questions for the readers. The questions for Speed’s picture was: How did he get his name Speed? And how long did he serve as the first mayor of Naples?

Speed was a daily angler at the Naples Pier for many years during the early days of Naples. It is my understanding he was elected mayor during a town hall meeting but decided to resign during the meeting saying he realized he was not cut out to put up with the BS that went on during this meeting. If is my theory they nicknamed him Speed due to the very short time he served.

My parents were running the Naples Pier and we had the pleasure of knowing Speed from 1949 though the 1950s and what a trip it was. He moved to Naples from Kentucky and became a very colorful person with his handmade cane, mustache (sometimes waxed) and always talking about his grandma. People would ask, us just how old was his grandma?

Speed was one of several anglers that fished the Naples Pier every day from dawn for about two or three hours, targeting pompano with jigs or a homemade panama roller shell rig. He would always say, I have to get home and check on grandma. He would return to the pier that evening for the sunset with a bag of gardenias to hand to every woman he found on the pier and flirt with them. They all loved it, including a young girl I had met and was going steady with named Sharon Wallace, now Stier.

I once asked what brought him to Naples. He explained he was always sick in Kentucky and one day the doctor told him he did not have too long to live and added, why don’t you move to Florida? I think it would buy you some extra time and he did. He followed up with, that was many years ago and I have never been sick since, the doctor is dead.

Speed lived on the beach just a few houses from the pier. He invited my parents and I to his house and we met grandma for the first time. She was a hand carved coconut head and sitting next to some bottles of Kentucky bourbon with a set of glasses sitting upside down on a white cloth. They looked like they had never been washed. He poured my parents a shot of bourbon in the glasses and said, I never wash the glasses as they add a better taste if you don’t.

He was in frail health when Hurricane Donna came through, Sept. 10, 1960, and destroyed his house. Legend is he cut a one payment deal with the hospital to stay there until he died. If that is true, I really think he got the best part of that deal as he hung in there for quite some time.

I am sure the Naples Pier continues to harvest some very interesting seasoned anglers with fantastic stories but they will never find one like Speed.

Catch you later.

---

Red Stier is a bi weekly contributor to the Marco Island Eagle. Questions or comments may be directed to redstier@aol.com or 172 Trinidad St., Naples, Fla., 34113.