Southwest Florida Fishing Reports

Adam’s First Tarpon on fly and what a great fight!!! Great job!

Lets do it again soon!!

Wayne and Walt fished the Everglades with me for four days last week and caught lots of snook, trout, and a few redfish on fly. We really had some great mornings fishing for tarpon and this is one we got to the boat..Great job Wayne on your first tarpon everglades style!!!

This has been typical of the last couple of months and will continue all through the summer.. Leaving around 6:00am and getting back to the dock around 2:00pm. I will try to post some more photos and I have a lot but they don’t have the correct format for this web-site. Just be patient!!!

On another important note. Please make your plans to fish southwest Florida because the oil from the spill will never reach our shores. The loop current and the southeast winds will keep the oil hundreds of miles from our shores.

April is half over and the tarpon have been here for a few weeks now.. We have hooked some monster tarpon and broke hooks and line over the last couple of weeks. Landing a few! We hooked a 20lb snook and landed one about 36″in the last few weeks.  We are still seeing some monster snook when we are looking for them. The redfishing is solid and caught a few 25” fish sightfishing in inches of water.. But still everyone wants a few shots at laid up and rolling tarpon. It seems as though it is March!! The water temperature and the patterns are the same as last March.. Must have been the cooler than normal temperatures this past winter!!!

March Madness

It is starting to warm up and the fish are showing up in good numbers. Wally had a 30-32″  snook eat his fly and the hook popped out but this redfish ate the second fly we presented in 6″ of clear water way in the Backcountry. 10 minutes later we had this amazing 15lb 36″ redfish in the boat. The biggest Backcountry redfish I have ever seen period… We saw another come down the bank even bigger.. After a slow start in the morning things really heated in the afternoonas they typically do when we have a cool night.

Photos from the first and second week of March. We saw and cast to numbers of 15-20lb snook these last couple of weeks and they wouldn’t eat. We really had some great shot and had monster snook track the fly for 15 feet and not eat. Wow what Drama!!! Adam Taylor one afternoon had 25 shots on two shorelines at these giant female snook and had them make passes on the fly many times. I think when the temperature warms this next week these big fish will eat!!!  The tarpon should be here any day now!!!!!!

Pickup at the dock and full of anticipation

Big redfish caught early in the day

One of two nice snook Les caught during this very memorable day

We, are half way through February and the fishing is surprisingly good. Yes, we had a fish kill but the Everglades and the rest of Southwest Florida seem to be rebounding quickly. Last week Wade Mayberry  had shots at some nice snook and landed five on fly one day. We also caught a big 4lb trout and some gag grouper along with plenty of ladyfish. I also fished around Sanibel with some  clients and on our best day we had 30 good shots at big snook in the 35″+ range and lots of nice redfish. We didn’t get the big snook  to eat our flies but they were there!!!! Tarpon should be showing up any week now and am really looking forward to a fantastic season… Come on down!!! I will get some photos posted soon!!

November and December saw some fantastic fishing with some nice tarpon, snook and redfish being caught. We took  a few photos but they need to be below 2.0 mega pixels to fit into this program. I am working on this at the moment. Sorry !!

We were catching tarpon up until Christmas because of the warmer temperatures. We even caught a grand slam (Tarpon, Snook, Redfish) three days ago on January 5th of this new year. As the colder weather approaches the Redfishing should continue to be strong and the big snook will start to move into the backcountry. Check out my ad in the Fly Fishing Saltwater Magazine and an article that was written on my business in the December issue of  Coastal Angler Magazine for Broward County. I will try and keep the web-site more current for all those angler up north locked inside who need a fix during these cold months.

Something to look forward to during the coldest months of the new year!!

15lb Black Drum

We hooked a 100lb tarpon and caught a few snook and this 15lb Black drum on a jig by Ian who is 9 years old. Great Job  Ian!!!

Redfish on Fly

redfish on fly

Anyone for Doubles

October has really started off well with some cooler weather and tarpon seemly everywhere. Unfortunately my fly fishing anglers during the annual Redsnook tournament only  got points for three snook and three redfish for each day.  My anglers were Chris Ivey from Fort Lauderdale and Sara Zundel from Naples, Florida.  The last day was our best day with five nice snook and two redfish and some great chances to fill the card on redfish  during the last part of the incoming tide but as luck would have it we came up a little short.  However, Sara still managed to gain top honors in the youth division beating out all three of the other divisions to win on fly. Great Job Sara!!!! That included the Bait,Spin/Plug, and Fly divisions combined for this award. We all had a great time considering the tough tides and look forward to next years tournament.  Thanks to Hells Bay Boatworks for sponsoring us with shirts and hats as well as paying the entry fee. The proceeds for this tournament went to the Conservancy of Southwest Florida to fund a research project studying fish populations in the mangroves.  This project was to be headed up by my good friend Jeffrey R. Schmid Ph.D. Here are a few of the photos taken during the two days of fishing.

What a fantastic month in the Everglades. Baby tarpon were all over the creeks and bigger tarpon  were suprising us in the shallows. Snook were all over the outside islands and redfishing was hot and cold.  Every morning we had the grand slam (tarpon,snook and redfish) on our minds and most days we got it done. No photos because my camera is being fixed.  Thanks to everyone who fished with me this month!!