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Everglades National Park - Flamingo
Capt. Bob LeMay
May 10, 2005
Flamingo - Saltwater Fishing Report
It's been about six weeks since my last report. Not many days off now for a working guide, of course in August I'll have plenty of time for writing reports....
Everything is happening now at Flamingo. We've been catching nice snook in both Whitewater and Oyster Bays, on jigs and soft plastic baits. Our best fish on lures have been in the 10 to 12lb range. They seemed to turn on just as the snook season closed... Smart fish!
For weeks there have been great quantities of finger mullet in the interior bays available each morning when we needed live bait. The bait schools inside have begun to taper off but the remaining areas that hold bait have also been holding good sized trout and very nice sized snook. Redfish in the interior have been a bit scarce.
Along the coast we've been watching tiny pilchards packed in tightly against shorelines. Ladyfish, small jacks, and everything else that eats tiny baits have been working them all day long. These juvenile baits are so small they can be mistaken for glass minnows (bay anchovies). In a month or so they'll be about 2 to 2.5 inches long and almost ready for netting. Of course the small fish feeding on the tiny minnows are themselves attracting bigger fish. On more than one day we've caught large trout, medium sized spanish mackeral, bluefish, pompano in these same areas. This is also the time of year when small to medium sized blacktip sharks begin to show in numbers as well at river mouths and in coastal bays with lots of trout, macks, etc. You'll know they're around because they'll be eating anything in front of them including more than a few of my angler's lures... A 30 to 50lb blacktip will almost spool a reel loaded with 10lb line before I can get the motor started to chase him. Hot fish!
Tarpon action with the big fish has slowed a bit in the last week. We're still managing one or two bites during most days but the numbers are way down now. A few weeks ago we had big fish hungry enough to chase a fly all the way to the boat to bite, but that won't happen again until the middle of summer...I'm expecting lots of smaller tarpon in the 20 to 40lb range along outside points to take up the slack as the big fish leave my area to spawn. These smaller fish will be in good sized schools working the same areas along the coast every day. Find a shoreline or point along the coast that's holding fish now and they should be there day after day if you fish them quietly.
In the next week or so the winds should finally begin to slow down and rain will become a daily event. Until then the mosquito population is fairly moderate. Once the rains start in earnest we'll be using lots of bug spray. The fishing will get better and better as the skeeters get worse and worse, it's obviously a pattern... I'm looking forward to it.
Tight lines
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