Southwest Florida Fishing Reports

After fishing the Simms Crew

This photo above was taken by Rick with the Simms design team in front of the Seafood Depot in Everglades City . That is Dave Chouinard with me, there top sales guy who lives in that RV during the time he is on the road making sales calls. We spent the day talking about the Simms line of products. When we were done fishing Dave showed me their complete clothing line in the RV behind my skiff in the photo. We also caught 25 snook on fly as well as getting Rick his first snook ever. He ended up with 10 or so. Dave is one of the best fly casters I have ever seen and I have seen a lot. Both of these guys truly love the sport and it shows. Looking forward to doing some more fishing with those guys. We had a lot of fun. Let me know if you want anything from Simms and I will get you in contact with Dave and his crew!!

The sighfishing has been great the last couple of months with the warmer weather the snook and redfish have been swimming together on the outside islands. Tarpon are showing up as well. Peter and I hooked a 150Lb tarpon last week that broke us off on a oyster bar and then went to the shoreline to rest and we followed. Got the flyline back and then while trying to connect the backing onto the reel he made a run and broke the tippet. Great memories!! Peter and I have had a few over the years. Looking forward to a great season!

Southwest Florida has been fantastic over the month of October with lots of 15+ snook days. Lots of exploring followed by some great action when we find them. One of the most fascinating experiences of the last month was seeing over 1000 tarpon in one bay and all of them were only 10-15″ long and all rolling like their big bros. From Estero Bay down to the Everglades the snook fishing has been great with some redfish and baby tarpon on occasion.I still have a few days left in November and December up until Christmas. Last year we had a few days before Christmas when we hook and landed some big tarpon on fly laidup and moving threw. It just needs to stay warm. STAY WARM!!!

Redfish on a jerkbait

New Freestone Tibor on the 8Wt Sage

Some Tarpon will be around up until Christmas if the weather stays warm

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!!

We had a great day on the water January 9th before the cold spell.  We found a small area full of snook,redfish and trout. We estimated over 1,000 snook were present in this small area. The day ended with 4 snook to 30″, 10 redfish and 20 trout. I wish everyday was that easy.