equity line of credit: {Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Re: Fishing Southwest Florida May 2016

Saturday, June 4, 2016

{Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Re: Fishing Southwest Florida May 2016

Nicely done! I'm headed there in a few weeks for a trip. Mostly around Ding Darling and the surrounding area. All of us will be in Kayaks targeting Snook and whatever else will eat. Fortunately all my gear minus the rod and reel I moved up here with is already there with a good friend so I'll have everything I need. If you don't mind me asking, what patterns were you using for the Snook and Reds? I'm going with a trusty go to, the Dupree's Spoon but I'm anxious to get any other advise I can.

Thanks and great catching!

Dougy

On Wednesday, June 1, 2016 at 9:36:35 PM UTC-4, Dalton Terrell wrote:

The First Lady's folks got a new pad in Southwest Florida this Spring and we decided that I should take take a week long fishing trip down for Memorial Day.

I kicked off the excursion with some golf course ponds, no dice on the 5 pounders cruising the shore but a couple dumb 16" fish got tagged. Lacking humility, I figured I needed to get up before 5 the next several mornings and target the much fabled Snook of Sanibel. Great view at sunrise here, but no snook to be seen for a couple hours.

But just beyond those couple hours, I would be spooking and blowing casts to 20-30" snook and reds. Luckily for me, there are plenty of active miscellaneous fish active in the surf beyond the first trough including Pompano, Jack Crevalle, Blue Runners, Skipjacks, Ladyfish and Sea Trout. In four days, I caught in innumerable amount of these little guys along with a nice Pompano and a few nice Trout.

Most mornings I got 8-10 shots at targeted species, mostly snook sitting in 6" of water about 3 feet from dry sand. They spooked as easily as trout sipping dries, and as a paradox were hard to see until they were way too obvious. I saw one legitimate 40" fish a little farther out and he couldn't have cared less about my fly. After getting fed up with these fish I walked back to the parking lot and decided to cast a few times in the lagoon along the way, finally catching a snook while standing on dry land.

After several days of butt kicking and a parking bill that rivaled a guided trip, I headed farther south to fish the backcountry on the West side of the Everglades. This time, I was equipped with a guide, Capt. Mark Hall of Fly Fish Peacocks who I highly recommend and have been out with many times before. We got an even earlier start, getting a chance at dock light fishing for snook in the morning.

I tangled with a few small snook and some snappers before we chased the tarpon near the marina. We were seemingly always 120 ft away from a rolling tarpon, which is about 6 inches (well... maybe 40 feet actually) outside of my casting range and the boat was putting fish down. From there we headed back into the mangroves to give the snook and reds hell. In addition to this, we saw some small sharks, three sawfish, many porpoises and manatees. I had some tough under the tree shots at 30"+ fish but couldn't seal the deal, I did however tangle with a mid 20s snook that chafed off my downsized shock tippet. I got a few snook 18" and under to the boat, but luckily the larger reds were a bit hungrier.

All in all, one hell of a trip, but now it's time to go back to the reality of work and full night's sleep... but only after heading down to the Outer Banks for a some offshore fishing and bachelor party this weekend.