Sight-fishing the Sound
Steve Gibson
November 17, 2009
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report
The wind finally settled and the tide was predicted to be extremely low. So, that meant a trip to Pine Island Sound was in order.
The Sound is a great place to look for tailing redfish on a negative low tide.
Launched the kayak just before dawn and began paddling to a lush turtle grass flat that often holds tailers. Took about an hour before I saw my first tail.
In all, I saw about 12 tailing reds. I hooked up one briefly on my First Cast Crab. The fly, a crab imitation, was named First Cast Crab because I hooked a nice spotted seatrout the first time I cast it.
The FCC also produced several more spotted seatrout and a bunch of mangrove snapper. I found trout, snapper and snook in cuts on the outgoing tide in the backcountry. I caught a snook and some snapper on a chartreuse and white Super Hair Clouser.
Later in the afternoon, I hooked up a nice red on the Clouser. The red was in a foot of water on sand. There were a number of reds back there as the tide turned to come in.
Sightfishing has been pretty good, although the fish haven't been large. Still, small snook, reds and trout are great when you see them before you cast and watch them eat the fly.
The beauty about fishing out of the Native Watercraft Ultimate 14.5 is that I can stand up, pole and spot fish. It's a very stable kayak and I love fly fishing out of it.
Tides are good the rest of the week for tailing reds.
Pine Island Sound Fishing Forecast:
I expect fishing to improve drastically over the next few weeks. We are looking at good tides and cooling water.
Freshwater action also should be good.
We'll start our Everglades trips for oscar, Mayan cichlid, bass, bluegill, shellcracker and peacock bass next month.
Target Species:
Redfish, snook, spotted seatrout, mangrove snapper, tarpon
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