 |
Everglades National Park - Flamingo
Capt. Bob LeMay
July 7, 2004
Flamingo - Saltwater Fishing Report
Today was typical of the fishing during the summer out of Flamingo from Whitewater Bay to the Gulf coast from the Shark River northward. Finally I had a chance to fish with my favorite angler, my son James, who at seventeen has lots of things to do other than fishing... Since we don't get on the water together very much it's nice when the fish are biting.
Right now the fishing for snook and small tarpon along the coast is as good as it gets. We jumped six small tarpon in one spot on lures, releasing two at boatside and that was just to start the day. James then landed his first snook of the day on a small jig. It went almost nine pounds on the Boga-grip before a careful release. A nice catch on light spinning gear. Working our way to the north we found snook almost everywhere we fished for them. James was on his toes and scored the majority of the 10 we caught and released. His biggest weighed in at 14lbs, a bit over the slot limit... From large to small all were carefully released -- we'll be looking for them in September. Along the way we also encountered some large jack crevalle, our largest was around 12lbs. They're a handful on 10# line. We also caught and released a few assorted sharks on both bait and lures up to around 100lbs. We finished out the day working a small spot for speckled trout and each of us caught and released some nice ones in Whitewater Bay to complete the double slam. If the redfish had co-operated it would have been a grand slam! Maybe next time...
Right now there's little bait in the areas I'm working. Fortunately small bucktails in all white or red and white seem to be all that's needed. We're supplementing them with soft plastic baits and doing quite well. If you're careful to cut back your leader a few inches after every catch (when the fish has frayed it) you can go all day with only one or two lures right now. The only trick is placement. You've got to work near structure for snook, snapper, redfish, etc. The small tarpon are reacting well to lures fished slowly near the bottom in areas where you can see them rolling. In some cases we watch as one fish repeatedly attacked the jig until he caught it. Each strike was marked by a silver flash getting closer and closer to the boat.... Flies with a little weight would probably have done almost as well.
From now until the end of summer most days will have this kind of action. We'll vary things a bit with an occasional night trip around the bridges in Biscayne Bay when the tides are right. Most days, though, will be along the coast where you'll rarely see another boat all day
More Fishing Reports:
|
|
|
|
