3/10-15/09 Everglades days, Everglades nights

[flyfishsalt]

with the great weather comes warmer water. With the warmer water comes happy fish. We headed off looking for Tarpon sized Snook and Killer Whale sized Tarpon around the full moon. It was a very slow go on the poons our first couple days out, despite the fact that we saw them spread out everywhere we looked. It was clear that the Snook were all hot and bothered and we should give them a hard look. I headed off in search of the Snookalo in Jurasic Park and while I was disappointed not to get more shots at large Snook I did hook into the largest Snook I have ever hooked on artifical topwater plugs (my favorite). It was an awesome creature around 45" and as round as a truck tire. I estimated the weight just under 30 lbs. Interesting thing to note is that this fish, while super huge did not fight any harder than the two other Snook we have landed around 20 lbs. this year. In fact it came to the boat without taking as much line and in short time. When this fish took the plug and came to the boat we could both see that the plug was deep inside the mouth and perhaps this prevented this awesome monster from fighting as hard as she could. We looked at and droped casts on monster Black Drum and baby tarpon only to come up empty at the end of the day. Next we moved on to an area that I have fished in the springtime for Tarpon and as soon as we found them jumped two and landed one around 70 lbs. I was able to catch a glimps of the fish we landed in the air off the end of the 10 weight fly rod.

While camping we found ourselved torn between fishing hard for laid up Snook over a light bottom in the middle morning or looking to get on the poon and try to put the big ones in the air on the fly rod. Sight fishing the big Snook has to be the coolest thing out there, but it is very difficult and one can spend days trying to feed these big mothers.

The second half of the week we found ourselves with some very fussy Snook (even the smaller ones) and happy Tarpon all over the place. It was cool to see the mixed bag of Tarpon 20-100 lbs. rolling together all day. Some would lay up in the middle of the day, but were very hard to spot because the tide was making the water dirty, then others would just keep right on rolling. We had some great shots, arials, spooks, deep eats, and even a couple moments when the wiery angler, hot under the mid day sun just plain melted down on the bow while trying to keep a line infornt of the mighty silver king.

Overall the fishing here in boca and in the everglades national park is spectacular right now and with the scenery, natural beauty, and great weather, and lack of people (we saw nobody in the glades) the two trips were a lot of fun for me to put together and enjoy with other anglers who seemed to enjoy it as well.

[flyfishsalt]

There are so many great photos from last week, I don't know where to begin.. The second 1/2 of the week was with a reel-time member and three of his fishing buddies. I had an oportunity to shook the new Nikon D90 that someone brought on the trip, so I only used my Olympus E-500 a little, but these photos are from the Olympus.

I have enjoyed the Camping and fishing trips into the everglades in the past 5 years so much that I think it is starting to catch on with the fly fisherman up North. I think I heard myself telling them "It's a special place" like three times a day. What else can you say when you have Tarpon rolling around and the weather is killer in a place like this ?

[flyfishsalt]

pics, from last weeks fishing...

[twick]

I was one of 4 on the trip hosted by Joe and another guide. I can't say enough good things about the experience: camping deep in the everglades 30 nautical miles away from nearest civilization, waking up on the water, and fishing for 14 hours per day. Joe and his fellow guide did a great job finding the tarpon, and we we found them: hundreds of rolling fish of 30-120 pounds in a river at times no wider than 40 feet. Despite the guides giving us plenty of great shots to feed the tarpon, our rusty casting strokes and buck fever prevented us from landing fish others may have landed. In addition to the tarpon, we saw monster snook, one of which was fooled and pictured on this thread, and also had shots at big jacks. Seared in my mind is the vision of an 8 foot alligator snapping up a snook I had released only moments earlier and gliding away with the snook crosswise in its toothy jaws. Joe worked his tail off and has a real nose for finding fish, and also cheffed up some pretty good meals at the campsite.