Benny Blanco’s Flamingo

By Jan S. Maizler
Article & Travel Editor
Photos By Jan S. Maizler

Benny and I had planned for our May outing nearly six months in advance. He felt that this timing would give us our finest flats fishing in front of Flamingo and offer casting "ops" for snook, redfish, and seatrout. It had been a long, long time since I'd fished these close-by waters, opting instead for distant exotic shores and shallows.

I'd been hearing of Benny's exploits and triumphs in the waters of the Everglades National Park, a place he could easily call a second home. More so, with his Yamaha 70 H.P. driven, 17-foot Maverick HPX-T featuring a tunnel hull and engine jackplate, he was able to run and float in waters mere inches deep- this offered an experience I found irresistible!

The major event that divided the span between our consultations and the actual trip was the record-breaking winter of 2010 that wound up killing so many snook and small tarpon in the Park. To Benny's credit, his guiding success continued throughout the most freezing days by pursuing species with better low temperature tolerance ranges such as redfish, black drum, and seatrout. Benny plied the deeper, warmer, fish - congregating sanctuaries of creek holes and produced catches and releases for his clients that often topped the one hundred mark.

And yet, Winter finally gave way to Spring and the flats fishing in front of "Benny's Flamingo" started to turn on with lots of mullet schools, seatrout, and redfish. By the time our May trip day rolled around, Benny was pleased to report some really thick action beginning in the Snake Bight area.

Underway

I met Benny in Florida City and then we rode together in his vehicle with skiff in tow for the one-hour drive to the launch ramp in Flamingo. On our way, I learned from Benny that his professional training was engineering with a degree from Georgia Tech. While he spent many years running a successful construction consulting firm, his ongoing passion for fishing the Everglades ran in his blood unabated, dating back to his childhood. He was able to realize his dream of being a full-time fishing guide five years ago and he soon had a very busy booked fishing schedule. When I asked him if he missed the shirt and tie stint, he responded that he was living more passionately now, but credited his methodical approach in angling technique to his engineering training.

Gentlemen, Start your Engines!

Since we had both chosen Friday - that still has the rudiments of a weekday - the ramp was fairly quiet and our launch was very quick. I have to acknowledge that I noticed Benny's polished approach when he asked me to avoid the bugs and stay in his air-conditioned S.U.V. until his skiff was tied to the dock and ready for boarding.

As we eased out of the marina, a light easterly breeze caressed Florida Bay. Benny gazed aloft at the blue sky, which was festooned with a sprinkling of marshmallow-shaped clouds. We looked at each other and smiled at the fair weather that greeted us.

In mere moments, Benny pushed the throttle and off we zipped into the green and blue expanse. Five minutes or so later, we blasted through a huge area of ladyfish feeding on glass minnows, reminding me that Flamingo was a habitat brimming with life. Not far from the melee, Benny backed off the throttle, cut the engine, and coasted to the edge of a shallow flat.

Benny pulled a spinning outfit from the starboard horizontal rod holder. The reel was filled with 8-pound braided line finished with a 20-pound fluorocarbon leader that sported a weedless-rigged soft plastic paddletail swim bait.

I knew from the rigging that our basic quarry would be redfish, and water depth under his Maverick skiff would predict that the fish should present themselves in waking, tailing, "crawling" and cruising modes. Benny was soon poling us towards the crown of the flat from his astonishingly high poling tower. After two hours had passed, I'd released about six nice reds to six pounds. Though I was thoroughly satisfied, Benny felt the action could have been even better.

I asked Benny how the trout fishing was, and he responded, "Off the charts - and there are big fish in numbers that I haven't seen in years." When I pressed him for more details, he said that yesterday's action was so intense that his clients were getting strikes on every cast using surface plugs. Since I have a strong passion for large seatrout, I asked him if we could turn away from our redfish hunt so I could sample the hot action with Mr. Spotsides. Benny said, "It would be my pleasure."

After poling off the flat, he turned on the engine, quickly got on plane and we were underway. The run to this area took about thirty minutes.

Benny pulled out a pair of different spinning outfits before his approach to the target area. These outfits featured longer, heavier rods than the ones used for the redfish. In addition, they sported 12-pound braid, 30-pound fluorocarbon leaders, and Rapala plugs in the "Zara Spook" style. When Benny saw my mild surprise at the beefiness of this tackle, he explained that the enhanced rod and line arrangement were perfect for making very long casts at unwary trout, "walking the dog" from far way, and getting solid hooksets at greater than usual distances. His explanation was perfectly sensible to me - I would simply need to add more finesse to my fighting pressure once the seatrout were hooked.

Once we arrived at the area, Benny simply allowed his skiff to drift along with the light breeze. We both fired off incredibly long casts and within a few rod sweeps had huge explosive blowups on the plugs. I followed the surface plug rule of "fishing to weight, not strikes", and only lightly struck my fish when it actually bent my rod. Within two minutes, we both had trout in the three to four pound range alongside the skiff.

The next two hours was the stuff of dreams with non-stop action on gator seatrout up to five pounds. I stopped counting after we released forty fish, all the while realizing that I never had a seatrout experience like this one in my long flats fishing career. I asked Benny to end the day while the fish were still striking in order to preserve the mojo mood, rather than experience that glutted exhausted feeling when the fishing feels "too easy." Benny said he'd comply only if we could have a return bout with the redfish in two weeks time. Who could refuse that kind of ultimatum?

Round Two

I happily accepted the challenge and before "entering the octagon", I was sure to do so with "teammate" and friend, Miami Herald Outdoor Editor Sue Cocking. We all met in Florida City and followed the same transportation drill.

Once again, we were blessed with fair sky conditions... but this time, all of Florida Bay was flat. Benny was delighted with these conditions since he felt the fish would be much easier to spot. When I raised the concern that the super slick conditions might make the redfish spookier, he countered by saying that correlation had more relevance for bonefish, but that in Flamingo calm waters on the flats could be considered ideal.

And was Benny ever right! As soon as we eased up on the first flat, there were redfish everywhere in evidence. In addition to spotting tailing and cruising fish, Benny also showed us redfish that were striking into tiny baitfish. Basically, these redfish would hide in the weeds and when a small gobie-like fish would wander into the trap of a shallow open piece of sandy bottom, the redfish would lunge and strike their prey with a popping, slashing sound.

The action was so good that most of the time, we were generally poling to sighted redfish or else casting to or fighting them. The redfish were also bigger that two weeks ago, with my largest specimen over twelve pounds. By midday, both Sue and I had our fill of spottail action - we were thoroughly satisfied.

It was a wonderful experience fishing with Benny on his "side of the 'Glades." On the ride back, he told us that he put anglers on redfish basically all year round. In a setting of such beauty and plentitude that was only a convenient hour from Metro South Florida, I had thoroughly renewed my zest for Flamingo, a la Benny... and so will you!

Contact Data

Captain Benny Blanco
Phone: 305-431-9915
Web Site: www.fishingflamingo.com
Email: captbennyblanco@aol.com

See all the photos from the outing in Jan Maizler's Photo Gallery.