Marco Island Fishing Reports and Forecast
Naples, Marco Island, and the 10,000 Islands are home to some of Florida’s best inshore and nearshore fishing. Whether you are looking for gamefish or dinner, this area provides excellent year round opportunities. This being said our local waters are quite extensive and can be fished in many different ways. The seasons and weather also play a big roll in our fishery, and its useful to stay up to date with the current conditions to maximize your success out on the water.
I have been personally fishing these waters for 10+ years and have built friendships and connections with a long list of local captains. I will be featuring reports from Captains and myself alike on a weekly/biweekly basis. I hope you enjoy and feel free to leave a comment and I’ll see you out on the water!
Weather
latest Fishing Reports
March 18 – 2025 – Marco Island Fishing Report
This week had its set of challenges with the wind being the biggest. With the front hitting us over the weekend brought a strong onshore cold wind for the past few days. This made the coastal areas murky and on the colder side. Water temp bounced around this week starting out around the 72 mark to down to 69 with the front. Today its up to 71 and should increase as this week continues.
I got out a day before the front but still found the coastal area around Marco to have murky water making live bait very difficult to find. Fishing in murky water can produce some good fish but you will need either cut or live bait and I didn’t have either so I decided to run south. Fishing some middle bays and working mangrove edges with a variety of soft plastics produced a solid snook bite with over a dozen to the boat but all under slot with many in the 22-25in range. Along with snook there was a good trout bite but for me they were on the smaller side with maybe just one or two hitting 15in. That and a few small snappers in the mix gave to a successful day in my book.
This week looks like there might be another tiny front by the end of the week making some wind on Friday and dropping the air temp a little bit making for a few chilly mornings. Good tides all this early week going to a half moon step incoming by the weekend. Going to be a little tougher then but if you find some moving water it should produce a good bite.
March 11th – 2025 Marco Island Fishing Report
This past week had its challenges to say the least, most of the week had heavy wind then the weekend brought some weak step tides. Most of the action in the past week was in the backwater jigging shrimp for trout, snapper, and sheepshead. The water temp still stayed around the 71-72 degree range which is still on the colder side for spring fishing. This past week and probably the upcoming week I believe are going to be transition weeks from winter to spring, I’m looking for that water temp to hit the 74 degree mark to really kick off our spring bite. Live bait has still been tough to find, some local captains are finding it offshore early mornings before their trips but even then the say you gotta have a little luck to find them. Once the water warms up a little the live bait will push on the beach making it easier to find. And when bait is on the beach the snook and tarpon follow.
I ran out a day this past weekend but with a weak incoming step tide I knew the bite would be tough so I decided to do some scouting instead and put some miles on the skiff. After hearing some early reports of tarpon staring to show up I wanted to go see for myself. However the beach side was still murky from the wind and had a small swell coming in so that option was off the table. So I worked my way from the Marco beach all the way south to the Port of the Islands channel but couldn’t find any consistent numbers of tarpon to fish. Most likely they were not moving on the slack tide and thus not rolling or jumping in their usual migrating spots. They are still scatted and need a little luck to find a pod but these upcoming weeks are only going to get better.
This week is looking better, with some less wind (hopefully) and a full moon on Friday which means strong tides for the days around. Should be a better bite in the upcoming days.