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Everglades National Park - Flamingo
Capt. Bob LeMay
January 27, 2004
Flamingo - Saltwater Fishing Report
These past two weeks have been a little slow for me. There's fish to be caught, but I haven't had as many bookings as I'd like. Despite what I've seen published the tarpon in Whitewater Bay have only made the briefest of appearances during this period. In short, they're around for a day or two and then the cold weather has chased them back outside. A few days of mild weather should make all the difference, but by mid-week we'll have another cold front... That said, we have had some good days for everything except the big tarpon.
This time of year we're hunting warm water every day. Shallow areas cool off very quickly on cold nights, but also are the quickest areas to warm up on a sunny day. The types of places to pay special attention to are areas with soft mud bottoms that are sheltered from the wind so they can hold the heat from the sun. If you find the right spot you may find slot sized redfish and snook of every size. Some days you'll find snook in very large sizes up shallow sunning themselves. The redfish are fairly easy to feed, the snook are challenging. There's still lots of speckled trout in Whitewater and Oyster Bays, but not great concentrations in any one area. This is the season when that backcountry slam - trout, reds, and snook are available every day. Mixed in with the trout are jacks and ladyfish along with the rare mackeral or pompano in from the Gulf for a short visit. When we're looking for some trout action one or two casts will tell whether the fish are there. If you don't get hammered very quickly find another spot...
For fly fishers this is the season for darker patterns fished below the surface. If it's been a nice warm day you might consider a surface pattern in the afternoon. Something that is about the size of very small finger mullet and makes the same kind of slight surface disturbance. As always I won't use any flies without weedguards in the backcountry unless fish are feeding at the surface away from structure. If you can learn to tie bugs with wire weedguards your hookups will increase.
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