I was lucky enough to be booked for four nights starting last Thursday... We got to fish two nights, then decided to shift to days since water temps would have made the night scene a tough proposition. This week it was all fly fishing and as much as possible sight-fishing...
The two nights were with a visiting angler from Great Britain, here for the Art Basel expo on Miami Beach. Charles had fished the night scene locally but it was a few years ago. On Thursday we hooked up just after sunset and scooted to a nearby bridge in rough conditions (winds out of the north all night long...) and immediately found fish. Small tarpon up to about 30lbs were on the prowl and taking shots at any flies tossed their way. That night Charles jumped 7 or 8 fish and kept two or three connected all the way to the boat for a quick photo and release all in only four hours of fishing... The next night the fish were not as numerous and the ones we saw needed coaxing as water temps were a few degrees colder than Thursday. We still jumped 3 or 4 including one of about fifty pounds that really put on a show before breaking off. We did bring one fish to the boat - a solid thirty pound fish, all on just a 9wt rod. Here's some pics of those two nights...
this particular fish was the smallest of the ones that came to the boat...
My next angler, Bruce Rueben out of north Florida was scheduled to fish both Saturday and Sunday nights but the conditions were steadily getting worse (another front meant water temps dropping even more...) so we opted to just do one day out of Flamingo on Sunday and work up into Whitewater Bay. After a chilly early morning the shallow sheltered spots I rely on in winter came into their own (the shallows warm up a lot quicker on a sunny day than any other interior waters, particularly if they're out of the wind). That Sunday we were poling quietly wherever we fished and it paid off... Our first two spots only produced some very hungry ladyfish that were on the large side and just shredded any fly sent their way. At our third shallow spot we eased along into less than 18" of water over a soft mud bottom looking for redfish. We only found two but they were every bit of 15lbs and cruising together in really shallow water coming right by us. We missed our shot (oversize reds up in shallow very clear water in the interior may be the toughest fish I've ever worked over in the 'Glades...) and I'm wanting another shot at them... Our next cove held both redfish and some nice sized snook up in the relatively warm (63 degrees by then, we had 57 to 58 degree water at dawn...). Once again the fish weren't co-operating at all so we did some prospecting. At one spot we got our first surprise, a very nice bluefish that weighed between four and five pounds on the Boga Grip before being released. Blues get much bigger up north but this fat fish was the largest I've ever found in the interior and it took Bruce's 8wt rod well into the backing during the fight. That seemed to get things going a bit. We finally found a little cove with some nice small snook and Bruce quickly caught and released two in the 16 to 20" size range. He did get a bite from a bigger fish but not the hookup. To wrap up the day we worked hard to pick up a redfish on fly and succeeded nicely with one that weighed exactly six pounds on the Boga... Here's a few pics from the day...
If you look closely you'll see that both were taken on the same fly pattern, a Whitewater Clouser... but they were tied up on very different hooks. The one that the bluefish took was on a heavy jig hook and had heavy lead eyes.... the one for the redfish was on a standard Mustad 2/0 hook and had large bead chain eyes to make it more suitable for shallow waters....
Here's a pic of that pattern....
the photo doesn't show the colors very well, the upper wing is fl. green and so is the thread...
Right now the weather is probably great for sailfishing but just too cold for the shallows... Fortunately things will warm up nicely by Friday and the weekend should be even warmer...
Tight lines
Bob LeMay
(954) 435-5666