For the final 3 days of our trip, we were scheduled to fish with Bert Barkus, a salty, seasoned veteran of the 'glades. With the weather/wind blowing from the west, we were short of options, and this meant we could not sight-fish the gulf-side, but would be forced to fish the bights and creeks in the back country. With plenty of snook and great structure there was more than enough fishing (and fish) to keep us busy.
We had a number of memorable events on this part of our trip. First, we had a big bull shark attack a small snook, which reminded us to "stay in the boat"! Bert had mentioned that I should not take long to release our fish, or to put our hands in the water.....now we know why!
Bert seemed to always know when to move and it didn't take long for us to find the snook. We boated over 60 snook in 3 days, and had several snook over 15 lbs. come to the fly. Unfortunately, none of these bigger fish made a solid connection to the fly.
Here is a clip of the typical cover we fished for snook. I just couldn't keep this fish out of the dead mangrove!!!
Although I tried top water bugs, we settled on my Floating Minnow as the "go to" fly. This fly is tied with just enough foam to allow the fly to sink slowly, yet when it is stripped it rises to the surface. The snook wanted a fly just under the surface, and the Floating Minnow did the job! Of course, it was fitted with my double mono weedguard, absolutely necessary to drive the fly in tight to the cover. Since this fly tracked near the surface, all the takes were like top water, with explosive blow-ups!
It was awesome!
Another memorable fish came very unexpectedly. While casting to a mangrove point, a huge snook rushed the fly, but missed....and when I made a second cast, she came again. Each time she failed to connect with the hook. However, when I made the 3rd cast, the fly was met with an explosive and solid strike..........from a 20 lb. Tarpon!!! I don't think I have ever been disappointed catching a tarpon.......but I sure wanted to get a closer look at that big snook. This fish was a lot of fun and gave us a great show.
The BIG surprise of the trip came in the last 10 minutes of the last day. We had been fishing a shoreline for snook, and were about the call it quits. Although we had seen tarpon here and there, in the coves, there was no pattern, so we didn't concentrate on them. As we drifted away from the shore, and as Bert started to secure the boat for the run home, I decided to continue throwing my bug. While blind casting into open water, a massive tarpon engulfed my Floating Minnow, and in an instant my 8 wt. was bent to the butt, and backing poured off my reel! What a thrill! After 2-3 jumps Eloise was able to calm down and get the video started, but we were not able to record very much. However, from the video you can get an idea just how big this fish was. Bert estimated the tarpon to be around 130 lbs.!!
The Everglades are amazing. There is so much life, and natural beauty, it is hard to believe!
The list of charactors included: Bull sharks, lemon shark (that actually ate my black & purple Neutralizer!!), black drum, redfish, manta rays, jacks, snook, and tarpon. Unfortunately, the water was very dirty/stained, and sight fishing just wasn't on the menu. Redfish and black drum were only momentary sightings. The deer flies and mosquitos made brief attacks, but really weren't bad.
Although the fishing was tough, I enjoyed the challenge. A great fly fishing experience. It was especially great to have my wife along, who enjoyed the experience too!
I hope we have a chance to return to the 10,000 Islands of south Florida!
