The beginning of the week brought some beautiful weather to east central Florida with sunny skies and light winds. The water temperature in the Mosquito Lagoon is in the mid 60's and the redfish have been tailing aggressively. Each day, I am seeing more and more big trout and it looks like it will be an excellent winter for sight fishing.
I left the spinning rods in the rack and used only my flyrods during three days of fishing the Lagoon. Monday, I quickly landed four redfish and one big trout. I had a couple shots at black drum but could not convince them to eat. I left the reds and went searching for a snook to complete the slam but did not see any.
Tuesday, I caught five reds and one big trout using both my five and seven weight rods. I saw a buddy of mine alone on his new boat so I climbed aboard and poled him for a while. We were able to get into some very shallow water and my friend had shots a numerous redfish. His casting, however, was a bit rusty and he missed a couple dozen fish and could not get the hook to stick on a few bites. He did break the ice with a decent trout he caught by dropping a soft plastic crab into a small sand hole.
Wednesday and Thursday brought clouds, wind and rain but by Friday the skies had cleared. Despite a rather stiff breeze for most of the day, I decided to stay with the fly and landed sic reds. I again had some shots at black drum that would not eat and some big reds that were not interested in my tiny fly.All the fish I caught this week were in very shallow water and most of the reds were tailing. I experimented with several flies but the most success came with a fly I made with a piece of brown craft fur and a few strands of copper and gold flash on a #2 hook. It lands softly which is important when targeting ultra shallow redfish.
Throughout the week I had shots at dozens of fish. I missed a few hooksets, had a few follows, and lined plenty of them. A slow retrieve brought the best results. Imparting too much action to the fly sent the fish fleeing in the opposite direction.
Capt. Chris Myers
http://www.floridafishinglessons.com
