Working hard but catching fish!
Capt. Jim Hobales
March 20, 2011
Flamingo - Saltwater Fishing Report
031711
I am with Scott and his son Micheal today fishing the Flamingo back country for Tarpon. We started out with some Trout, Jacks and Ladyfish to get warmed up. We looked for Tarpon but never really found them, water possible to cold (70 degrees). Scott asked if we ever get Triple tails I made a suggestion to run the crab traps and look for Cobias and Tripletail's. We ran out to the boundary markers and started there,we caught Trout, Jacks,Bluefish, Mackerels. Mike hooked into something that pulled allot of line and I said that's a Cobia! We landed it and took a few pictures and released it. We moved on and ran the traps and got into some Tripletails catching a couple. Mike wanted a big Shark so we headed to Fl. Bay, I had a Bluefish in the well and they make great Shark bait. I cut the head off and rigged on a big spinning rod, it only took 3 minutes and Mike was in a battle with a 150 lb. big Bull Shark. It lasted about five minutes and the Shark broke off. We rigged up again and the hooked up came quickly, this time it was a smaller Black Tip. Mike gave it his all for 15-20 minutes and finally got it boat side where I grabbed the leader and got a release on it. These guys were tired so we headed in.
031811
James is here with his wife but needed a little alone time, so he called me. We left Haulover @ 1 PM and netted some pilchards and headed off to catch anything we could. We got into some Tarpon right off the bat but only managed a few Barracudas. I went looking for Tarpon/Snook and found some really nice Snook, we had double of 30 inch fish and several others which we lost. We hit some docks and caught a few more then ran to the inlet. We cast baits up against the jetty for about 1 1/2 hours and got hit on every one. This was the best day of Snook fishing in Miami that I have ever had. Every once in a while I would toss out some freebies and watch them go crazy, it was cool because we had an audience on the see wall. We caught allot of small Snook but Snook are Snook! The biggest ones were just over slot size. Fishing was pretty good today, possibly had something to do with this big full moon we are on. I dropped off James and he went back to his wife with a smile.
031911
I am Flamingo with Karl, Jim and Bill today I owe Karl a Tarpon. I was hoping it would be easy but the ride in was a cool 48 degrees. As we left the dock there was steam coming off the water so I knew Tarpon would have to be later in the day. We started out with some Trout,Jacks,Snappers and Ladyfish. It always a nice warm up after the long ride into the park! We Hit the bushes looking for Snook and Redfish and ended up catching 1-2 on Snook and few Redfish. The bite was incredibly slow and we were working really hard for whatever we caught. I made the run out to the coast and found some Tarpon. I rigged a Ladyfish up for bait and waited for a bite, a Black Tip Shark ate it. Bill got the rod and fought for 5 minutes and we took some photos and let it go. I re rigged another bait and the same thing happened another Black Tip but its all good. Rigged up again, this time a Tarpon boiled on it but missed it. We saw the fish and were excited and then something it was peeling line butneevr came up. Karl grabbed the rod this time and this was a much bigger Shark @ 70 lbs., we boated it and went back to work casting at some rolling Tarpon. Karl hooked up and the line was screaming, I said "thats him " it only lasted for 2 jumps but Karl was excited about it. On a day thay seemed slow we ended up catching allot of fish, we called it a day and headed home, I still owe him a Tarpon!
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