Fishing report, Everglades interior, Flamingo

[lemaymiami]

This past week we finally got our first cold front that actually dropped water temperature dramatically. The coldest that I showed on my machine was only 52 degrees running across Whitewater Bay at dawn... which is pretty cold for the interior of the 'Glades. The good news is that was just the surface temperature. When I stopped the sensor read two to three degrees warmer. With cooler water, the fishing patterns change quite a bit and we took advantage of the opportunities provided.

Any corner that's sheltered from the wind and has a shallow soft mud bottom will warm up dramatically by mid-morning on a cold day and that spot may have a lot of fish in it... We found more than a few such places and had good sight-fishing shots at snook that were in the five to ten pound range. We also found lots of speckled trout for catch and release (their season is closed now until 1 January). Out near the Gulf coast we found holes filled with keeper sized mangrove snapper and some very aggressive gag grouper. The grouper were suckers for a bucktail jig bounced just off of the bottom. Of course the bigger ones are really tough to get off of the bottom. Every one of them was a real struggle on light gear. In two days of fishing I quit counting when my anglers had caught and released more than 100 fish, all on lures, mostly bucktails and Gulp shrimp.

As we move into winter the water is clearing up dramatically in the interior making for great sight-fishing conditions. This is the time of year to bring that fly rod.