were in our winter pattern
Capt. Jim Hobales
November 26, 2008
Flamingo - Saltwater Fishing Report
112408
This past week was very tough for me with the passing of my mother. I needed to get away and just have go fish. I called my good friends Paul and Capt. Raul and asked if they we up to it, the 3 of us have a good time together and usually put some fish in the boat.
The wind was supposed to blow N.E. at 15-20 so I said I wanted to go back in to Tarpon Bay, Cane patch, Rookery area. They agreed it wasn't a bad idea. We made our way up there, it is 30 miles from the dock and a great scenic ride. We hit a couple spots and finally got in to a good Snook bite, they aren't always big up there. It is somewhat of a nursery ground for juvenile Snook but the numbers can be incredible. One submerged tree back there can be loaded with Snook, Reds and Bass and the entire place looks ideal.
One of my favorite spots produced for us and we pulled 15 Snook up to 27 inches off it instead of wearing the spot out we moved on to the Rookery. There was nothing going on back there, no bait moving, no pops on the surface and then we saw a couple of jumping mullet as we were running out. I pulled of the throttle and we caught a bunch of a point.
It really wasn't happening so we headed back in to Tarpon Bay, where Paul caught 4 keeper Mangroves on his Twitch n Rap and I had big hit on a Gulp Shrimp. We get moving around from shallow bank to shallow bank and that's when I saw the mother load of the biggest Snook I have ever seen. I whispered look we got some big Tarpon on the edge only to see they were a school of 30 plus pound Snook. I wasn't in the position to cast but Raul flipped his jerk bait in front of the monsters and got hit.
The big Snook rolled over and flared her gills right under the boat (man were we screaming) it was short live the Snook ran under the boat and came off. We worked away from the edge and then came back around when Paul saw another group of them. I had explained earlier this exact scenario but never with fish this large I have seen 15-20 pound Snook plenty of times but these were truly big! They spooked and we didn't see them again so we ran we decide to go look for Cobias in the Gulf of Mexico.
We made our way out of little Shark river and the birds were diving everywhere on bait. We caught some Bluefish, Mackerels and Jacks but we wanted Cobia so we headed toward the markers. It was cloudy, breezy and the temperatures dropped as we got out there. The first couple markers didn't have much going on but Raul finally caught a Small cobia and then missed another but it was very slow. It was 4 o'clock and we decide we had enough and headed home.
Flamingo Fishing Forecast:
The calm days are excellent but timing is everything!
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