Fishing report, Biscayne nights and Everglades days

[lemaymiami]

Fishing at night has been very good recently. Since you have to follow the tide, my only night charter this week started at 1Am and ended at dawn. My anglers were two brothers from New York, John and Wayne Krush. John used spinning gear and Wayne stayed with the fly rod. We jumped about a dozen small tarpon from 15 to about 30lbs on bait and flies. The highlight of the evening was a fish of about 50lbs that almost spooled a 9wt outfit. Every now and then you'll encounter a tarpon that doesn't jump and they're double tough. This fish took the fly line and almost 200yds of backing before I could get us moving to chase him down. Hot fish! He only jumped once or twice toward the end of the fight. If every tarpon behaved this way, we'd be losing a lot of fish...

Flamingo has finally re-opened from the hurricane closure! The only things open there are the boat ramps. There are signs warning that there's no fuel, no food, etc. Some of the old timers that I've known would have approved... I went exploring yesterday through the interior out to the Gulf coast and never saw another boat on the water until I went up north where boats from Everglades City were evident. I saw no signs of any noticeable damage in Whitewater Bay and only an occasional tree down along the coast. There was hardly a trace of salt in Whitewater but that's typical for September.

Fishing yesterday was outstanding. My first fish of the morning was a 30" snook on a topwater plug. My second fish was a 42" snook that weighed 19lbs on the Boga Grip before being released. The next snook was almost as big at 17lbs. I went on to jump two small tarpon and another snook in short order. The big fish of the day was a 60lb tarpon in a Gulf river. All of the fish were taken on artificials using 12lb line. Flamingo is back in a big way. Combine the reports that I've heard about fantastic bites on the Florida Bay side and it looks like the hurricane did the 'Glades a lot of good. I'll be back there the next two days with anglers. I can't wait.