Fishing report, Everglades National Park
Capt. Bob LeMay
May 22, 2008
Flamingo - Saltwater Fishing Report
Time for a very long overdue fishing report. We've been fishing out of both ends of the Park, either out of Flamingo to the south or Everglades City to the west now for the last four weeks. The big tarpon have come and gone now leaving lots of small and medium sized tarpon that we've had shots at every day. The mediums range up to about 70lbs.... We're finding the smaller fish, from 20 up to about 50lbs in small groups - mostly around creek mouths and in sheltered river bends. Everything else has really turned on with redfish up inside shallow grass lined coves from Everglades City down to Lostman's River or up inside Whitewater Bay along shallow, clear, shorelines. These same shallow shorelines have also produced some interesting goliath grouper catches - we've even caught them on flies, one (about 12lbs) actually chased a fly all the way back to the boat. It seems that every day the growing population of goliath grouper (jewfish for you old-timers) pushes back into areas where we've never encountered them in years past....
The snook fishing continues to improve daily along the Gulf coast of the 'Glades. They've begun to move into their summer spots around downed trees on outside points, while there are still some really large ones that still haven't left interior bays. All of that will change once the rains begin (20 May marks the start of the rainy season but the actual rains this year are still to come...) and completes the migration from interior areas back out to the coast. In the meantime we're doing some interesting snook fishing depending on which end of the Park we're working out of. Down toward Lostman's we've actually been sight-fishing small to medium snook the same way that you work bonefish... these are fish ghosting in and out of shallow shorelines. Farther to the south, down toward the Shark River we're working deeper around downed trees much the same way that bass fishermen work structure. Now that the season for snook has closed it's all catch and release, with the added bonus that most areas are not being fished by anyone else.... We've also been seeing the growing signs of summer baitfish schools in some areas. The bait situation along with hungry fish working them will grow stronger every week all summer long. When there's bait around it sets up some great topwater action on plugs or flies every morning...
An added bonus when we've been working around deeper structure are the numbers of gag grouper we're finding. The biggest we've put in the boat has been just over 26" , the bigger ones are hard to stop once hooked. The best part is that half of all our grouper hookups have been while working lures. I'm betting that we'll have some on fly with a little live chumming when the bait schools get large enough... Add large speckled trout and lots of hungry mangrove snapper and the 'Glades is just the place to be each day....
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