Plenty of bait and big fish to eat them!
Capt. Jim Hobales
August 1, 2010
Flamingo - Saltwater Fishing Report
073010
I have been on vacation so I haven't posted many reports lately, but this is a pretty good one.
I fished with Ross and his wife Mindy today down at Flamingo for Tarpon. Ross has fished with me 3 times the last month and hasn't caught one but watched his friend Danny catch a 90 pounder. We started out by netting some mullet, one cast 30 assorted size mullet. We stopped at several spots looking for Tarpon but with a 12-15 mph S.W. wind which had the surface a bit choppy. The first spot had some big fish rolling around us, Ross and Mindy caught some Trout while casting at the Tarpon the biggest one was @ 3 lbs. We ran north in the Gulf stopping to catch Mackeral,Jacks and Ladyfish along the way. While running out in the Gulf we saw some free jumpers so we stopped in the little sable creek area. We put out a finger mullet that got hit instantly Mindy thought she got hit but wasn't sure. The bait definitely got ate. We rigged up another bait and it got hit, this time Ross got the rod and caught a 27 inch Redfish. The Tarpon started to roll within casting range and Ross really got excited. It finally happened a Tarpon ate his bait as he watched it, he did a good job of letting it eat as it swam by the back of the boat. At the same time Mindy gets a bite and she hooked up to a Redfish. I have the boat in reverse chasing the Tarpon and told here to just keep cranking and we dragged the 5 pound Redfish to he boat. Ross was still hooked up and the big Tarpon had a 100 yards on us, I unhooked the Redfish put it in the live well for a picture later. The Tarpon made it up on the shore line and nicked the line after 20 minutes, it was gone! Ross was heart broken, I said let go back and get another.
We set up and the Sharks really moved in on us,we had to hook 8 or so. All of a sudden a Tarpon is in the air and there was only one problem he missed the bait. We eventually ran to another Tarpon spot and saw a few but it was hot and they weren't interested. I hit a couple spots and we caught some big Mangrove Snapper while looking for Goliaths, I had some live baits left so we used them catching another 4 lb.Red fish. I told Ross I had one spot left. I was rigging a finger mullet on for Mindy as Ross cast his bait at the hole the Tarpon were in. The mullet jumped out of my hand into the water and swam into the hole where it got blasted by a Tarpon. Ross reeled his bait into the busting and the Tarpon ate it. Ross is screaming because he is hooked up to a 15 lb Tarpon. He fought it for 5 minutes or so and had it next to the boat when it came off, he wasn't so heart broken this time. We had 1 bait left and we cast it back in and got another great hook up. This one jumped a few times and again right next to the boat came unglued. We gave it another 5 minutes and called it, we had fished for 10 hours and we all needed a beer!
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