| The
snook fishing was excellent this
year! From bait fishing, to throwing plugs, and fly casting it was all very
good and fun.
John Skiffington, his daughter, and her boyfriend
caught over 20 snook one
day, one baby tarpon, and 3 redfish, which we call a "backcountry
slam":
catching at least one of each tarpon, snook, and redfish. They also
caught
numerous jewfish, jacks, ladyfish, and snappers. They probably caught
50
fish. We caught these on bait.
We caught three backcountry slams this season, and
numerous good keeper
snook with lots of snook just under the legal size.
Bill Truppi came down for fly fishing and caught
some nice fish in 4 days.
First day was bait fishing with his son-in-law. The next day was
the first
day fly fishing. We permit fished, and saw over 60 permit. He had
25 - 30
shots at fish up to 30lbs. Hey, they are tough.
The next day he caught his first snook on fly out
of two on "top water
flies." Then we went out looking for tarpon, found them and
fished them for
1.5 hours before getting chased off the water by a big storm. Before
we
found the tarpon, We came across a big school of jacks chasing ballyhoo
across the flat. Bill caught a nice one about 10 lbs. What was awesome,
were
the dozen or so big black tip sharks and bull sharks in with the
jacks up in
about 1.5' water. I was afraid they would get Bill's jack, especially
after
one attack the foot of my push pole without me knowing it was there
because
I was poling after his fish.
The third day fly fishing we hit the snook spots.
He caught his first tarpon
on fly, up against a mangrove island in a deep cut. You wouldn't
believe the
snook in there blasting the mullet. Then we ran out to a creek that's
been
good. Bill caught his first snook that day and had at least 6 more
bites,
including a couple from small redfish on the surface. Bill had to
be back at
the dock by 3:30 to catch a plane, so we ran over to a flat to go
for
redfish to try to get the backcountry slam. The snook were up on
the flat in
the pot holes like I've never seen. And did they explode on his "top
water
fly," one jumped completely out of water on the strike, like
a "sky
rocketing kingfish" almost. He caught 2 nice one just under
the slot size.
We had shots at maybe 10 more. We spooked two keeper size ones in
one hole
once, and we saw maybe 15 snook in total in about an hour of fishing
up
there. Bill had a couple shots at redfish in the holes too, but we
just
could not connect for the "slam on fly."
Blake Bartnick and friends came down for three days
of fishing with total of
4 boats that I set up with my friends. First day we caught another
"backcountry slam," by catching 6 snook, 1 tarpon, and 1 redfish;
and we
caught lots of jacks and a couple of jewfish. Second day we had tough
weather, and went snapper fishing in the channels and did not catch
much.
Third day we hit the bridge channels and caught 4 tarpon out of 7
hooked up
and on. One was about 60 lbs. which is good size for this time of
year.
HURRICANE "WILMA"
FISH STORY:
I could go on and on about this past fall, but I'll
wrap it up with a
hurricane Wilma fish story. I was getting sick of all the news hype.
Same
crap all the time! Wilma was approaching Cancun at barely 2 mph at
Cat 5,
but the forecast was it was going to turn with a cold front (which
will
weaken it) and come right at us. Hey it had not even turned yet and
it was
hundreds of miles away and barely moving, and they started evacuating
tourist and mobile home residents on Wednesday! Remember it hit on
Monday
morning! Thursday they started evacuation of lower keys, and it had
not even
left Cancun area and was drifting North.
Again Friday morning still drifting North and just
north of Cancun, hey
screw these "jack asses" this thing is not going to hit
till Sunday night
Monday morning - I'm going fishing!!!! And what a day of fishing
I had!
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