Poling For Reds, Snook, and More In Flamingo Everglades

Fishing Flamingo In the skinny stuff, stealth is key. If you want to catch the fish you see, both your approach and presentation have to be stealthy. Chances are, if the fish hear or see you, they will not eat. Everything is fair game here... sounds from the engine down to the whip in your cast will have an effect on the fish. Sometimes, it takes less than a sound to spook them... lateral movement in a skiff will send out small wakes that give away your presence. There are no rule books or guidelines on how to approach fish... use common sense. The fish are on high alert all of the time... be as stealthy as you can be and catch more fish.


Coach Tom and Scott Giberson from Pace High were back... this time in the little boat. Nice Redfish Coach!


Sightfishing is addictive... Tom put a perfect cast on this fish and then watched him chase it down.


Then it was Scott's turn... he watched a upper slot Snook come clean out of the water to slam his bait.






This Snook hit the bait so hard, it sounded like a car crash... then it ran off 50 or so yards of drag before Tom could make any headway.


Kenny had an itch... I told him to call a doctor, but he insisted on picking up the fly rod instead. I'm glad he did... this was the first of MANY.








Then, I had a shot at the bow and long rod for a change... man, that was nice. I just got in some new Maui Jim's... Canoes with the new High Transmission lenses. What a difference! I had very poor light as the darn clouds kept following us around, but the lenses helped me pick out this bad boy.




On Monday, Diego and Gabe joined me for a couple of days with the long rod... they had never seen (other than on TV) a tailing Redfish before, so guess what we did! Here is Gabe's first tailing Redfish and first Redfish on fly... congrats!






Then it was Diego's turn... nice work! This Redfish fought like a much larger fish... it was a blast.




They caught many more Reds, Snook and Trout!


On the next day, Gabe sight fished this over slot Redfish with a Skitterwalk! It was an explosive strike and bulldog fight... congrats Gabe.


Gabe would go on to catch a nice Snook and Trout to complete his back country slam on the same plug... Rapala Skitterwalk.


Mike and Scott were back for seconds this month... with Redfish and Snook on their minds. Early on we had several blow-ups on the skitterwalk, but the strikes were a little lazy. As soon as Mike switched to this subsurface setup, he found himself in a tug of war with this lunker.


Don's Bait and Tackle has a good selection of these swim baits... which don't work at all


Then Scott struck gold with this tailing Redfish.


Later in the day we were covered up in waking Redfish and Snook... with a perfectly placed cast, Mike hooked another lunker. We caught several throughout the day, foregoing the Trout and slam to stay in the Redfish and Snook until it was time to quit.




Until next week!