Back country bite
Capt. Jim Hobales
April 6, 2009
Flamingo - Saltwater Fishing Report
4-1-09
I fished the Marco Island area with friend Kenny Carman, we had S to SW winds at 25 mph so we went into the river system and put a hurting on some Snook. I was getting ready for the Backwater Series Tournament on Saturday, Kenny was going to fish with me but had to cancel. I asked him to pre fish with me since he has a place over there. I figured out a good pattern but the tides weren't going to be right for Saturday. we caught 30 Snook or so and Kenny had a nice 30 inch Redfish. We caught everything on artificial's, Twitch N Raps, X Raps, Gulp Jerk Shads.
040309
I am back in the Marco area for another day of pre fishing, the weather is almost identical to Wednesdays but the winds are up over 30 mph. I am with my partner Paul we have been fishing tournamentstogether for the last year. I wanted to try an area I used to fish a lot when I was on vacations here. On my first cast I had a monster Snook come out from a dock and smash the Twitch n Rap but hit it short. we caught some big Jacks and had the same thing happen a couple more time with the Snook. The wind was cranking into the spot and it was tough to fish it right so I decided to go to another area. Our 3rd angler arrived and we picked him up, Capt Jim Chambers from Titusville is a great angler/captain and one of the funniest guys I've ever been around. He was a last minute replacement so we showed him around the area since he had never been there.
040409
We got an early start today only to find our bait had died, the winds were gone it seemed like we could have a nice day. We check out and were let go, we made a run down south to our first spot. This spot has been good to me but the fish weren't here today, we worked the area and finally caught a few Snook, Jacks, and big Mangroves. We saw a big Snook blow up a school of Mullet and the Tarpon were doing the same. We decided to go to Spot # 2, on Paul's first cast he got a decent snook. The I got a couple Snook and Jim caught a 19 inch Redfish. We had a few decent follow ups and some big blow ups on top water and spoons. We worked that spot really hard for 3 hours and caught a lot of short Snook. We netted some mullet and went looking for a big Snook only to hook a big Goliath on one point and then had a big Snook run me up into the trees and cut me off (60 lb flour leader). With 30 minutes left I hooked what looked to be the perfect Redfish, there was $1800 in the calcutta for big Redfish. We were excited, we measued it and it was a quarter inch over. We debated whether to try to weigh it in or not, we decided not to. The $1800 calcutta was on our minds and the fish was close. The fish could shrink on the ride back but it was over and your not supposed to keep it. The fishing was good and we caught a ton of fish and missed some fish that would of made us some money but we had a good time!
Flamingo Fishing Forecast:
Fishing is getting more predictable, the weather pattern should start to get more stable
Target Species:
Tarpon, Snook, Bonefish,Permit
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