Fishing report, Everglades- Flamingo to Everglades City

[lemaymiami]

Once again, it's been a few weeks since my last report and the fishing is still on fire now. From Cape Sable all the way to Everglades City, the Gulf coast of the 'Glades is the place to be for snook, tarpon, redfish, and a variety of other species. The few times we've fished Whitewater Bay, it's been great as well. Now for a few particulars. There's lots of bait now everywhere along the coast, with large schools of pilchards, juvenile threadfin herring, mature bay anchovies (called glass minnows locally), and mullet of every size. We're seeing fish just gorging on bait while sharks cruise in the shallows looking for an unwary diner.... Although most of our efforts have concentrated on fishing with lures or flies, a live well full of finger mullet can mean almost continuous action when the tide's right.here's a typical red for this time of year....We're keeping things simple with the live bait, just attaching them to light jig heads and pitching them up against cover where their life span is measured in seconds. The few times we've used bait, almost every one was a fish with many double hookups on both redfish and snook. I quit counting when we'd caught and released more than a dozen slot sized reds and snook....This photo shows a nice snook, note that his partner is still hooked up on another fish... They kept me so busy that this is the only photofrom more than a dozen fish caught and released without moving....[img]aoladp://MA16898973-0002/snookonfire.1.JPG[/img]I was able to spend a few days fly fishing and it was productive for everything except the tarpon. They're keying so heavily on bait that our flies weren't getting much attention. Bruce Rueben, an experienced fly fisher from Minnesota, still got to experience some hot action with snook on fly. He caught and released them on popping bugs, on flies fished deep, and also in sight fishing situations where he could see the fish turn and sneak up on a small fly. Here's a few photos:a nice Whitewater Bay snapper, early morning. Snook on fly- topwater, sub-surface, in the interior and along the coast....[img]aoladp://MA16898973-0003/reubensnap.JPG[/img][img]aoladp://MA16898973-0004/reubensnook.1.JPG[/img][img]aoladp://MA16898973-0005/reubensnook.3.JPG[/img][img]aoladp://MA16898973-0006/reubensnook.4.JPG[/img] On our best day he was able to catch and release a backcountry slam of snook, trout, and redfish. It would have been a grand slam if the little tarpon had stayed attached at the back end of a small creek... He also caught and released over a dozen snook in just one little creek. Everyone jumped on a small crystal schminnow ona #4 hook... It was just about as good as it gets.here's the red that we needed to complete the slam...[img]aoladp://MA16898973-0007/reubenred.1.JPG[/img]Most of my fly anglers this time of year use 8 to 10wt rods. Rods on the light side are rigged with floating lines, the heavier rods are set up with intermediates. The popping bugs are pretty simple affairs, here's a sample[img]aoladp://MA16898973-0008/small%20popper.JPG[/img]It's tied up on a #1 or 1/0 hook, and simple white or yellow and white are all that we're using. When we're not working the surface then small mullet patterns or all white Silhouettes get the nod. As usual everything worked deep gets a wire weedguard - even small glass minnow patterns like the Crystal Schminnow...The hot backcountry action will continue now until that first cold night which should occur sometime in the next week or so. After that first cold night the only thing missing will be the giant tarpon (they'll fade back into deeper waters in the Gulf as water temps drop).