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Everglades National Park - Flamingo
Capt. Bob LeMay
November 25, 2007
Flamingo - Saltwater Fishing Report
These past few weeks have been busy ones, although not always on the water... After lots and lots of fly-tying and boat maintenance work, I was able to run a few charters out of Flamingo. This time of the year we're finding more than a few surprises and the highlight of each trip may not be what was expected. In the interior of the 'Glades, Whitewater Bay has begun to produce some exciting sight fishing. Redfish and snook are moving into their winter quarters and can be found in shallow coves with soft mud bottoms. In those same areas we're also finding the occasional juvenile barracuda. I only see the little 'cudas in winter where they're hanging out in places normally reserved for snook. In one of those same shallow coves we poled up on a good sized sawfish in less than two feet of water yesterday. Although not very big by Everglades standards, the fish still looked to be more than seven feet long (of course almost 2 to 3 ft of him was the spiked bill). Since I've seen specimens that were over twenty feet long, this one was just growing up... The fish scooted away from my pushpole, but not before my angler, David Stefan from Washington D.C. got a good close look. Although they're on the endangered species list, the Everglades still has a good population of them.
Most days we're catching and releasing a large variety of fish. Along with snook, trout, and redfish, you can add snapper, grouper, mackeral, bluefish, pompano, jewfish, and still not list every kind of fish encountered in just one day on the water. Yesterday's highlight was large hungry snook. David Stefan caught and released several on both lures and bait , the largest weighed 14lbs and was caught on bait at a creek mouth..
The smaller fish measured about 32" and weighed 8lbs, the biggest fish was well over the slot limit at 14lbs... For a bit of perspective, David is around 6'3".... and the big snook was his largest to date.
A few days before a father and son from California, Frank Marino and his son John, caught and released a backcountry slam of snook, reds, and speckled trout. The big surprise that day was a large blacktip shark that we estimated at about 80lbs... That fish almost spooled John at a river mouth while jumping more than most tarpon. That fish should have been in front of television cameras with all its acrobatics. It was an outstanding catch on 15lb line and young John really got a workout.
The next few days I'll be fishing fly anglers exclusively so my next report will be of interest to anyone wanting to fly fish the 'Glades in winter. We'll be launching out of Everglades City and fishing the Ten Thousand Islands.
Tight lines
Bob LeMay
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