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Everglades National Park - Flamingo
Capt. Bob LeMay
November 30, 2007
Flamingo - Saltwater Fishing Report
Fishing report, Everglades City to Lostman's River
After a few weeks of tying flies between charters I was glad to take a break from Flamingo for a few days with a three day charter out of Everglades City (for anyone not familiar with the 'Glades, that's the far western portion of Everglades National Park. It's most often referred to as the Ten Thousand Islands). I took an extra day to do a bit of exploring on my own earlier in the week and found snook of all sizes in the upper bays, along with lots of solitude. I could fish that area for days....
When I'm running the backcountry and want to cover as much water as possible my first choice is a small medium action plug rod that would be familiar to any bass fisherman. It's a rig I built some years ago and it's comfortable to handle all day long.
Now for some specifics. Water temps in the backcountry were a bit higher than I expected, ranging from 70 to as much as 74 degrees in late afternoon. I found snook in lots of places but few of the big snook that are probably hanging out somewhere between the coast and their winter homes in the upper bays.
The three day fly charter was a bit slow the first two days. The fact was we just plain struggled, finding a few big fish that spooked away from us along with numbers of small snook. Most of our fish came on Whitewater Clousers with wire weedguards. Outside along the coast the low tide was showing real estate that you don't often see. We did our share of finding areas you couldn't even pole through, much less run through. The third day turned it all around. We ran down to Lostman's River and started the day with blitzing jacks that ate every fly offered, then caught and released a few small snook on popping bugs before moving offshore. At our first spot offshore things appeared slow as we worked flies around a marker, then drifted away.. In just an instant, things changed for the better as two small cobia swam up and around the skiff. They'd chase the fly back to the skiff, but couldn't quite eat it. On our second pass by the marker a pair of 30 to 40lb cobia worked towards us right at the surface. Mike Scott, from Washington state, made a great long cast with a pink and white Silhouette and the lead fish began to follow. Mike quickly began working the fly faster and the fish hit it going away. Even though the fish broke off on its first run it was great fun on a light 8wt. rod. A few minutes later Mike cast to a group of rays and was rewarded by a school of pompano that boiled up from one of the rays. Although the fly in use was a mullet pattern one of the pomps nailed it, then posed for a picture before being released. Pompano don't usually go after large flies but these fish were just plain hungry...
At the next offshore spot things went dead so we ran back inshore south of Lostmans looking for tarpon. We'd seen a few around but nothing you could target. In one of those classic 'Glades gulf coast rivers we found them - tarpon heaven! The fish ranged from 20 to 80lbs and were rolling all around the skiff. Again it was Mike's turn in the bow and he made the most of it using a 10wt rod with an intermediate tip line. The fly we used was a Tarpon Snake in a smaller size on a Tiemco 600sp 1/0 hook. Mike hooked and fought a nice medium sized fish in a river that was only about 80 feet wide. That fish did it all, making a long run then reversing so quickly that the line was slack far too long but Mike was able to get all the line tight again before the fish could come free. At the boat the fish appeared to be between 50 and 60lbs, a real handful on a relatively light rod.
I missed most of the jumps since I needed to pole the skiff to keep out of trouble but did manage a few photos when things settled down.
We carefully revived and released the fish and watched it swim away without a mark on it. Like I said, Tarpon Heaven. The fish will be inshore a few days more until the next cold spell which looks like Monday or Tuesday.
Tight lines
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