Persistance pays off!
Capt. Jim Hobales
June 17, 2011
Flamingo - Saltwater Fishing Report
061011
I fished in the Goodland/Marco area today getting ready for the Backwater series tournament tomorrow. We got into an area where the fish were really active blowing up schools of minnows finding something small enough that they would hit was the problem. I finally went to a Trigger X swim bait and it started getting hit by small Snook, Mackerels and Ladyfish. I ran out to Marco Pass looking for Pompano but kind of missed the tide .
061111
I am with my partners Paul and Mitch this morning waiting for the tournament to start along with the other boats, we had 60 miles to run. I usually run down to the Flamingo area where I fish my charters, today we need 2 Trout and 2 Redfish. We made one stop on the way to get our Trout, It took less than a half hour and we had 2 fish for 5 lbs. Our next stop should have produced fish but we only caught 3 and there were boats in the area. We made a long run south and completely wasted our time with the big tide pushing allot of water in. We hit all our spots and didn't find them so we ran back to the Chocoloskie area and hit some of old spot on some low water. It didn't take long and we had a just over the slot Redfish in the boat, on the next cast I missed one and then I caught an even bigger Trout than we had. The wind was a big factor today it got up around 30 mph out of the NW on the ride back and we got our butts kicked. This is the reason for the Pathfinder 22 with the Yamaha 250 SHO it helps a bit. We ended up a Redfish short at the weigh ins, I actually dropped a short one over the side and never worried about it thinking we would catch another. We ended up in 11th place on a tough day, better game plan next time!
061311
I am at Flamingo today with Joel and Ana from Chicago. We are out to catch fish and have fun, I started out catching Pinfish and Pilchards. While I was chumming up bait the Tarpon showed up and there were a bunch of them. We cast at them for a while but they showed no interest, we moved on thinking I would find them at the next spot. On the next spot Joel caught a Redfish and lost one. We had some Tarpon rolling around us but no takers. I ran out to another Tarpon area and found a few. Ana started catching big Trout so we stuck with it for a while, after an hour of Trout we moved on.
I had live pilchards so I had a spot in mind, we got there and started live chumming and nothing happened. We had a west wind flow and giant tides, usually the pilchards bring them out of the bushes. We had some Sharks find our baits and Joel had a blast catching them. The pilchards finally got some attention, Ana caught a nice Snook and then a 20 lb Lemon Shark. I found some small Tarpon on the way back in and they liked the pilchards, only problem we only had a couple left. Ana had the hot hand and caught a nice Tarpon,her first. Ana ended up with a slam of Tarpon, Snook, Trout and with Joel's Redfish we had a boat Grand Slam!
This is the time of year where the Snook start spawning in the inlets its either big fish or lots of smaller fish, either way a good way to spenthe afternoons/evenings
Flamingo Fishing Forecast:
Snook in the Inlets
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