Tarpon, Redfish and
Reports of No Fish? A thing of the Past!
The Flats are heating up in South Florida
An over all fishing report for Flamingo and Biscayne Bay
March 25 2010
Finally, some warm weather! Our prayers were answered! Great fishing is here, and with the amount of fish, we have been finding many positives are surfacing after a bad start to the fishing season.
The action is South Florida continues to heat up on the flats this week; we have been finding schools of mudding and tailing Redfish moving up on the flats to feed in Florida Bay.
This week I had the privilege to fish with new friend and avid fly angler Vince Maggio. He is an excellent long time angler for Reds in Florida Bay a heck of a fly tier!
Like so many days recently, we started out by shivering on the run out! However, by 10 A.M. we were surrounded in warm sunshine and hungry Redfish. Vince connected with a couple of Reds on Fly using one of his patented crab flies. The first fish was a tailing Red that was rooting up crustations on the edge of a flat in skinny water, and the next was a nice 6 lb Red caught trying to hide in a hole. Vince placed both casts perfectly. The tailing Red saw the crab fly a couple of inches away flared his gills opened his mouth and sucked in the fly! On the second fish, Vince made a perfect cast on the backside of the hole and slid the crab fly past a very aggressive Red that came out and away from the hole to hammer the fly what a hit! That was obviously a very hungry fish and one I will keep on file in my in memory for a long time!
On Saturday I fished with Bryan and Kyle Clem from Ohio, we started out with a little warmer air temperatures "finally" and we found plenty of Redfish again. The only problem was the first three or four hundred fish didn't want to play… so we tried different things and different ways even and changed flies several times but still no takers. But when the sun angle changed a little and the water temps went up a bit the fish turned on like a light switch. They started to chase flies all over the place! The fly was one of mine, a "Jims JB" a Chartreuse Llama hair streamer fly, and Deer hair as the head with some flash mixed in for accent. This fly placed a foot or two in front of a cruising Red will normally generate a strike as it did on Saturday but the strip must be aggressive and short.
Bryan landed three nice Redfish on fly and hook released a couple more at the boat, while greenhorn Kyle landed three on spin using Berkley's Gulp shrimp as bait on an owner 1/0 wide gap hook. (Red fishing here is an excellent way to learn how to fly fish in saltwater by the way! In addition, I do give lessons.)
. There are Large Tarpon in the backcountry and they are good at eating flies, I have not been back there for 2 weeks because of the cold winds …but with the warm up I will be back there fishing for large Tarpon after this weekend. I have reports of Tarpon averaging 100 lbs and showing in good numbers so I expect Tarpon fishing to take off now that is warm again. Small green and black flies normally do the trick.
I hope that the small Tarpon are in some of the back bays and ponds in White Water Bay, we will be looking hard for these guys.
In Biscayne Permit are the next to fall in line…sometimes its hard to choose between Permit on fly and Tarpon on fly and which one to target because both are fun as hell to fish for! I will let you know!
Keep the Sun at your back!
Capt. Jim Hale
www.floridasportfishingcharters.com
786-255-1788
