Florida

Not much to say except sunset shots and sore stomach muscles from giggling for 13 hours.  Captain drew picked me up at 7:15 AM and we drove to Goodland where Mr. T was waiting.  The fishing was outstanding and the effort was colossal....the catching was non-existent.   No Tarpon, no Snook.  One shot at a passing shark and a few departing wakes from a couple of reds using the stained water to their advantage...

We got back to the dock at 8:38 PM.  Like I said, colossal effort...

The rest of the trip went well too.  The girls swam, enjoyed the sun, picked shells and swam again.
I found some seatrout off the beach and watched my daughter pull in her first pompano.

No complaints.

Florida

Spring Break when you are 43 means something totally different than spring break when you are 20. 

My daughters, 7 and 11 were off from school this week and the family boarded a Frontier flight (we flew free on vouchers issued from the Mexico debacle from November), and this time I brought my rod tube on board, without apology, and pulled it off with no questions asked.  As we have for a number of years, we flew into Fort Myers and drove down to Marco Island.

It appears 20 year olds on spring break don't go to Marco Island, which is why I go to Marco Island.

I didn't bring my work lap-top and when my work cell phone battery died on day 2 I didn't bother to plug it back in.  It was tennis with my wife, ice cream with the kids and sunset cocktails with the in-laws.

And a day of Tarpon fishing.

I spent a morning wading the Tigertail Beach lagoon but the recent cold front left it void of fish.  I fished the jetty on the south side and despite seeing 3 pompano caught, I was blanked.  I stopped by a local boat shop and inquired about fly guides.  The guy at the counter said, "yeah call OC...Captain Drew".  He gave me Capt. Drew's number and when I got back to the condo I gave him a call.  He said he had a family fishing trip booked for Wednesday that he "might" be able to get another guide to take it.  He said he'd give me a call back.

The call came about an hour later, he was "in".

The plan was to meet at a gas station on Marco on Wednesday morning.  I was without wheels and he agreed to shuttle me to the launch in Goodland FL, about 15 minutes south and the entrance to the 10,000 Islands.

At the prescribed time on Wednesday morning, Captain Drew pulled in for gas and I jumped into his Tacoma (boat in tow).

I'd put him at 27 or 28 years old.  Young and eager.  I like that.

He said he knew a spot where the tarpon were laid up and we'd likely get some shots.

We pulled off the dock, idled through the manatee zone, and jumped up on plane.
I'm sure if I spent as much time in the 10, 000 Islands as he did, the labyrinth of creeks and mangroves would seem less labyrinthy...but if would have told me to steer the boat home (without electronics) I would have been in tough shape.

He cornered the skiff into a mangrove bay that looked just like every other bay we had seen, cut the motor and jumped up on the poling platform.  I took the casting deck with his 11 wt (I only brought 8's) and fired off a few test cats to get a feel for the rod, line and fly.

It was 7:40 AM.

At about 8:15 AM he spotted his second laid up tarpon, I pitched and the fish ate...I strip set and the fly popped out.  To give you some perspective, these weren't babies.  Averaging 100-150 lbs these giants seem like more of a threat than a quarry.  They pull into this channel and settle into the bay to rest on their migration north.  A number of them exploded on the surface as the day progressed, a few charged hard for no apparent reason, leaving a thick wake in the shallow water.  Others simply floated up to the surface, took a breath and sunk back down.  The water was tinged with green making visibility tough but it was better than it had been for months, or so said Capt Drew.

We spent the day poling and looking, peering and hoping.  I can't remember how many fish we saw, threw flies at or simply lost sight of.  It occurred to me at one point that 100 pound fish shouldn't be that hard to find or that difficult to see once we located them.   It was steady a steady and baffling hunt.  Unnerving and exhilarating at the same time.

The early grab would be the last eat that I had from a Tarpon that day but the hunting action was constant and when things would slow down for 10 or 15 minutes a giant silver king would blow up 300 yards away and keep us on our toes.

By late afternoon we made our way deep into a corner of the bay when the finger mullet started freaking out.  I took a long shot at a cruising shark that followed but didn't eat because I failed to keep the fly in it's zone of vision.  I was watching the mullet explode around me when I small school blew up a 10 yards off the bow.  I false cast and pitched into the settling water, stripped three times and then watched a hole open up under my fly.  The jack turned and I set.

The backing screamed off the reel and I felt like giggling.  I've always liked jacks.  I have only ever caught some 10" fish off the beach but I deeply admire their hunger and strength.  This one was a little over 10 inches.

In the course of the battle the jack put the 11 wt into a deep arc, made me tighten the drag and kept lining a laid up tarpon 80 yards out.  A saltwater gong-show.

I know that Capt. Drew was hoping I'd land the jack and get a shot at the tarpon but I was having too much fun to worry about a 100 lb tarpon.  When we finally got it on the Boga-grip it weighed in at 16 lbs.

I love jacks.

I had been standing on the deck for 8 hours when I asked Capt. Drew what the plan was.  He replied, "What time do you have to be back?", I said, "Dinner in Goodland with the family at 5:30".

He said, "With the tide down I know where we might be able to see some snook or redfish..."

OK!

Before it was over I had shots at Trapon, Jacks, Snook, Redfish and Black Drum.  Capt. Drew fished me for close to 10 hours and I had a great time.  I've been to Andros where the guides started looking at their watches at 4:15.  Not the case here.  I think he would have fished me until dark.
I like fishing with guides whose love of fishing supersedes the time clock or the 8 hour window printed on their brochures...such is the case with Capt. Drew.

We got back to the dock at 5:45.

If you are ever down in Naples or Marco Island and would like to fish the 10,000 islands I can highly recommend Capt Drew and his company Mangrove Maniacs.

shallow draft boats

Pelican

Grackle (?) attacks Osprey

Mullet...the other white meat

natural chum...

walk the straight and narrow

Bike to the beach

Beach Still Life

Morning

Tarpon Water

Jacks are awesome

Capt. Drew on the release.

FL

The plane touched down in the slowly thawing north today, many of its occupants (including yours truly) returning from what was supposed to be a sunny, suntan oil sloshed, week away from the cold in Florida.  Instead, what we got was a string of cool days with high winds that felt nothing like what we'd hoped for all winter long. 

Day 1 - My wife and kids braved the weather and hit the pool anyway.  I braved the less than ideal forecast and hit the beach in search of Snook, Pompano, Sheepshead, Ladyfish and whatever else the gulf waters would supply.  I fished the beach on day one with nary a bump.  Clousers, Deceivers and the usual suspects were heaved and retrieved with out a second glance. 

Day 2 - I decided to make the 3 mile hike to my favorite jetty.  In the ink black of the wee morning hours, I hiked the beach an couldn't help but notice a bright light near the jetty.  Even from 3 miles away it was quite bright and I couldn't make heads or tails of what it might be...a new warning light on the rocks?  Perhaps a boat anchored off shore? After slogging through the sand for 30 minutes I was stopped by a fence 300 yards short of my fishing destination.  The sign on the fence said "No Trespassing - Work Area".  The bright glow of a million watt worklight lit up the beach.  Workers in bulldozers and dump trucks worked in the glow laying what appeared to be a pipe of considerable length and girth...a water main for one of the major hotels perhaps?

In the early dawn I spied a kindred soul casting his spinning gear off of the jetty rocks, deep inside of the forbidden area.  So, I acted like I owned the place, jumped two fences and joined him.

A local, it turned out to be.  He said he was looking for pompano and had a hunch they'd be here.  I asked for his approval on sharing the rocks and he granted it.  He drilled a jack, and I hooked a snook.  He landed a mackerel aand I beached a sheepshead.  He broke off on another mackerel and I landed another snook...and away the morning went.  Bent rods and backhoes.  He finally landed a pompano and decided to peel out and I stayed on until I got weary of the frayed leaders from mackerel.  I never did touch a pompano. 

Feeling good I hiked the miles back to the condo and settled in to a little beach time where I watched a guy wrangle a 50 lb lemon shark.  Not bad for day 2. 

Day 3 -  Broke cold and crappy.  A little shelling with the family in the morning followed by an angling excursion that resulted in a single bump (from what was surely a snook) from behind some old bridge pilings on one of the passes that surround the island.  The wind made beach fishing impossible and that was the end of day 3.

I don't even want to talk about day 4...cold with 30 knot winds.

Day 5...see notes on day 4.

Day 6 - Damn the torpedoes, wind or no wind, frozen guides be damned, my wife drove me down to the Jetty beach access early in the morning and I said, "Don't head back to the condo for a few minutes.  I will know shortly if this is going to work out".  Thinking that my years of fishing this pile of rocks has taught me a thing or two, I figured I'd take the beach access trail, pop out on the beach, take one look and call and tell her thumbs up or thumbs down.  I hit the beach took a look and couldn't quite get a read on the waves.  I decided to walk out and take a closer look.  I had just jumped my first fence when a pick-up truck pulled up and said that he was sorry but if I continued he was going to have to call the police.  I told him I was just going out to fish the jetty as I had done a few mornings earlier.  He said he understood but explained that his boss was on the work site this morning and he was a "real asshole".  I asked him if he called the law on me if the police would really show up...He said they would. 

I called my wife for the early pick-up.

Back at the condo I schemed with my father-in-law about fishing the canals along the Tamiami Trail in the Everglades for snook and juvenile tarpon.   With only this day left to make hay, he agreed and we hit the road.  The first stop offered up a few manatee but no fish.  We continued further along the trail where the canal follows the road and pulled over at the next bridge crossing.  Casting we saw nothing and didn't get a touch.  We crossed the road to the other side of the bridge and stood on the small sliver of land that separated the canal from the guard rail...also known as "the shoulder".  Timing my backcast between hurried vacation traffic, semi-trucks and motorcyclists fresh from their tour of the keys, I pasted my fly against the far bank and got jacked by a snook.  Victory!
The canal, as it turns out, is lousy with fish.  Mullet swim back and forth in the tannin stained water and alligator gar lay motionless in the slight current.  Bait erupts in the mangroves followed by the tell-tale "clack" of a snook taking its lunch and I time my cast between the ebb and flow of traffic to launch the fly to the dissipating rings.  Snook on.  To be fair, I landed small snook...a pile of them, but small.  I saw and had follows from decent snook in the 25" range but they wanted a fly stripped fast and by the time they took interest my retrieve was over and the fly was at the near bank.  On a cast, shortly before calling it a day, a managed a 45 degree presentation down the canal and around a mangrove.  Stripping the fly back I thought I could make out a shadow following.  As the fly crept closer to me, the shadow took form and the brood shoulders of a truly magnificent snook materialized out of the dark water...it never took a bite and when it got too close it kicked up some silt and it was gone.

And so was I.

Beach Snook

Sheepshead

Other Fishers 1

Other Fishers 2

Other Fishers 3

Local

Evening Surf

Alligator Gar

The canals along the Tamiami Trail

Snook water

Little canal snook

   

Salty South - a brief pictorial - Southwest Florida

Fishing the beach

Beach Snook

Sea Trout

Snappers, Ladyfish and Trigger Fish off of the Jetty

First Flounder on the fly

A custom Panga owned by a friend/customer of mine.

I got to fish out of this for a day...nice boat!

Doing a little housekeeping on the new Halsnoy boat

Another day ends - with my oldest daughter.