Manatees, Gators and Snook

No I didn't catch any manatees or gators, but there were plenty around where I was fishing.  I had a day off free from tennis, golf or beach responsibilities and the weather cooperated, so off I went to the canals along the Tamiami Trail in the Everglades.  There are a limited amount of places where you can usually find some fish without a guide and/or boat.  When they built the highway from Tampa to Miami in the 1920s the section from Naples to Miami cut right through the Everglades.  To raise the roadbed above the water line they dug canals which were linked to the Gulf of Mexico.  Now these canals teem with aquatic life.  The water is brackish, so there is a mix of freshwater species, such as bass, gars and alligators and saltwater species, such as snook, tarpon, and manatees.  In the winter the saltwater species are seeking refuge from the cold water in the Gulf and hang out in the canals which warm quickly.  In the video you will get a feel for the area. To get the right effect, put on your long johns, fleece and a couple heavy wool sweaters so simulate the 86F temperature. (Sorry, I couldn't resist that jab at all my frozen buddies!) Although the video shows some huge snook swimming by, the biggest I caught was about 18 inches. White and chartreuse Clousers were the favorite fly, which I discovered after trying about a dozen other patterns. Next week I hope to get out with my buddy Dick on Charlotte Harbor. While I am fishing for redfish and seatrout next weekend, I suggest you head to the Fly Fish NH Show at Pelham Fish and Game Club on Simpson Mill Road in Pelham, NH on March 2 and 3. There are lots of exhibits with fishing guides, outfitters, fly shops and organizations. Also continuous seminars and even a class on how to build a fly rod. Be sure to stop by the NH Rivers Guide booth and say hi to my partner Jim.
Show flyer.

Time to get to work!

My winter vacation in Florida is over. We point the Prius north at o'dark:30 tomorrow AM. Played a lot of tennis and a little golf and just a smidgen of fishing.  Tuesday Stan and I visited my old buddy Dick in Punta Gorda.  Dick and I used to work together and are both alums of the BSC (Bull Salmon Club - google it for more details.)  Dick organized the first conference of the BSC in September 1989 at Maynard's of Maine. But I digress . . .

We met Dick at his place and launched his flats boat on Charlotte Harbor.  We stopped at a few spots - caught a lot of Ladyfish and a few trout.  We tossed flies for a while, but when the wind picked up we wimped-out and chucked a few spoons.  The water depth ranges from about a foot to about eight feet.  Most of the places we fished, we could see the fish chasing our flies. (Or NOT chasing our flies! :-(   We were hoping for some redfish, but none showed their spots.
Stay tuned for reports from MA and NH (and maybe NY and CT!) 
We still have a few openings in the Northeast Fly Fishing School classes -  Beginner Class and Intermediate Class
Our Androscoggin Special Package trip is almost sold out for June, with only a few spots open, and we are starting to book September trips. 

Snook!

The weather down here in SW Florida has been fantastic for about a month - over 80F every day. Since they were having Shrimp Festival on Fort Myers Beach today, we decided to go to Barefoot Beach in Bonita Springs. (No, this isn't really a beach report, but a fishing report, so "bare" with me.) Coincidentally, I caught a snook last week at the end of the beach, but that was not part of the decision process - that's my story and I'm stickin' to it! Here is a little video of the action.

Hope you enjoy it. I'll be fishing a couple more times before heading north the end of the month.

Hey, I almost forgot: my buddy Jim said some of you stopped by to say hi at the Fly Fish NH Show last weekend. Glad you could make it. What did you think of the show? Any good bargains? See any good presentations?

Winter update and spring preview

My winter vacation is two/thirds done. This February has been the best month in the years I have been coming to Florida. My wife Joanne enjoys going to the beach and I enjoy it like I enjoy a root-canal - well, maybe not that much fun. It is hard for me to sit still for more than a few minutes, so I take a long walk, sometimes with fishing rod in hand to give some purpose to my efforts. Saturday we went to Barefoot Beach in Bonita Springs. It is often written up as a top-10 US beach. Well, it is now in my top-10, since I caught a nice snook there Saturday morning. When we sit on the beach together in Florida I always tell Joanne to enjoy it while she can, because when we get home it will be my "busy season" and I'll have to get back to "work." She won't see a whole lot of me until late July. I'll be heavily involved in the Northeast Fly Fishing School at Evening Sun Fly Shop on weekends in April and May. I already have some mid-week dates booked in May for the Mayfly hatches and beginning of the caddis hatches. Also, our "virtual fishing lodge" on the Androscoggin River the last two weeks of June is booking nicely.
While I am slaving away at hard labor on the beaches of SE Florida, my partner Jim has been hard at work on the fly fishing show circuit with gigs at the Marlboro Show, and many TU meetings and library seminars. He's also chairman of one the top fly fishing shows in New England and the ONLY fly fishing show in NH - The Fly Fish NH Show this weekend- March 5 and 6 - at Pelham Fish and Game Club. This show is a lot of fun, since it has many local shops and guides. There are bargains to be had, but most importantly, you can rub elbows and swap lies with fellow fly anglers in the area. Be sure to stop by the NH Rivers Guide booth and say hi to Jim. He'll have a lot of pictures of our trips and will be happy to share information about NH fly fishing opportunities.

Reporting from Florida

Today was the first day I was able to get out and sample the local fishing.  Stan and I departed at 6:30AM for the canals along the Tamiami Trail (US41) in the Everglades.  We hit some of our usual spots and a couple new ones.  The day started out a little brisk (53F) and warmed up to a little over 70F with a bit of a breeze.  We started in the big canal at the end of the Everglades National Park volunteers RV camping area. As we were rigging up I saw a couple snook and some bass cruising around in the shallow end of the canal.  My small crab pattern drew some immediate interest and  brought in a 12-inch bass.  Many follows and some short strikes, but no more hook-ups there.  We checked out a new spot I had spotted on the satellite view of one of the online mapping programs.  A few follows and short-strikes from bass, but no hook-ups.  We then moved down to the maze of canals behind the seagrape visitor center.  As always, lots of manatees and a few 'gators.  We thought we saw a few tarpon roll.  I caught the smallest snook I ever saw and Stan got a small, but respectable, redfish. That is the first redfish I have seen caught in these canals.  We hit a couple other places, but the wind picked up and the fish weren't cooperative, so we knocked off early.  This week I think we'll rent some kayaks and fish the Orange River. Here is a video of the seagrape canal.  Watch for a couple manatees surfacing.

Bottom of the 9th with two outs - Fish!

Stan and I made one last trip today - to the Orange River, where we rented a couple kayaks. About 6 weeks ago when we last came here we read in the paper that over 900 manatees were counted here. They like the warm water discharge from the power plant. This time there were no manatees - but we found a few fish.

In a couple days we will pack the car and head north, but today we caught some fish.

Tarpon on the Fly!

Stan and I made a couple "not-much-to-report" trips to the Charlotte Harbor flats with only a couple small trout to show for it. Then yesterday we took a drive down to the canals near the Tamiami Trail in the Everglades. We fished there briefly a couple weeks ago when Stan caught a Jack. This time it wasn't too windy; was a little warmer and the fish (and gators) were more active. The gators were sunning themselves in some of the good fishing spots.
I saw schools of baitfish "raining" on the water, so I knew that they were getting spooked by a predator, probably a tarpon, since we had seen some rolling on the surface. I had put on a weedless, white tarpon fly and tossed it about 20 feet in front of me into some cloudy water at the end of the canal, where the baitfish were swarming out of the water. The line came tight and I set the hook hard and the fight was on. This thing ran, jumped, jumped some more and generally went berserk! This big gator made a beeline towards the commotion and stopped about 20 feet way from us.I put a lot of pressure on the tarpon to keep it away from the gator. It was hard to land the fish, since the bank of the canal is about two feet above the water, and I was not about to get down into the canal with that hungry gator! I was using a 12-pound redfish leader, with 18-inches of 30-pound fluorocarbon as a bite-tippet to protect from abrasion from toothy critters and sharp gill covers. Here is some video Stan shot.


As I was pulling the tarpon up the bank, it lunged and broke the leader. I estimate it to be 24 to 26-inches and somewhere a little less than 10 pounds. Two-bites for a gator!
After making a few more casts, we decided to move down the canal a ways and fish another spot, where we had seen another fly fisher earlier. When we got there he was putting his gear away in the truck and I noticed it had Maine plates. As we pulled up, he turned around and I recognized Danny Legere, proprieter of the Maine Guide Fly Shop in Greenville, Maine. We chatted for a while, exchanging info on some local spots. You never know who you are going to run into on the water!
This is probably my last report, since we are leaving Saturday to head back north. Hope you enjoyed this mid-winter interlude, even though it is "off-topic" from New England Fly Fishing.

Charlotte Harbor odyssey

Saturday Dick took Stan and I out on his flats boat. Sorry no pictures :(
We cast the flats along the inlet of Alligator Creek with no action. We then hit the flats north of Burnt Store marina. This is a great place for stalking redfish. We saw loads of redfish and Stan hooked into a real bruiser. He couldn't move the fish with his 9WT rod and the fish kept rubbing his mouth on the bottom to try to dislodge the fly and wore through the leader. We then cruised down to Boca Grande pass, saw a bunch of dolphins and stopped near Turtle Bay to try for some trout without any luck. A great day to be on the water. We are going to try to get out early tomorrow morning. Maybe we can entice some fish before the sun gets high in the sky.

More Charlotte Harbor Flats Fishing

Stan and I got up at o' dark:30 and got out to the flats at sun-up before the wind started blowing. Actually, it was a very foggy morning and the fishing wasn't too bad. We each landed nice speckled seatrout.
This is the trail through the mangroves down to the flats.
It was real foggy, which was kind of cool.

Stan took this video of me landing a nice speckled seatrout.


This is what the trout looked like.

Tamiami Trail - fishin' and gators

Stan and Deborah wanted to 1. see some gators (Deborah) and 2. catch some fish (Stan.) I could guarantee with a 99.9999% certainty that Debbie would see gators, but guaranteeing fish is not in my nature. Well, we saw hundreds of gators, some manatees, and some fish. Here is one that was on the end of Stan's line.

Br-r-r-r

Even here in Florida, the cold front has taken its toll on the fishing. Probably another week or so before things begin to warm up. In the mean time, here are a couple things to take a look at:
The Puffer fish caught on a shrimp fly!



And another bit of an odd-duck type of fish - the Lady fish!

Florida Flats Fishing

Went solo to the Charlotte Harbor flats. Weather perfect. ~80F and very light breeze.


Fish were a little more cooperative, too! Here is a nice trout that fell for a pink shrimp/Clouser.