Fishing Southwest Florida May 2016

[Dalton Terrell]

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.

[Scott Stankus]

Great report, Dalton - looks like it was a fantastic trip!

--
http://www.tpfr.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tidal-potomac-fly-...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tidal-potomac-fly-rodders/52ba973a-4275-466e-a0cf-a40d30ca00c9%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

================================================

"There are 10 types of people in this world, those who know binary, and those who don't"

[Andrew Sarcinello]

Awesome, Dalton! I need to convince my grandparents to move there year round so I can get down to Sanibel during beach snook season. Sounds like a real challenge.

[arthur...@gmail.com]

Looks like an great trip Dalton!

Art

Sent from my iPhone

--

[namfos]

Nice trip. Keep up the good work. ;-)

Mark

[DougyMillCove]

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:

[Dalton Terrell]

Doug,

First off welcome aboard, I just saw your other post. I'm not an expert but I like flies that are more neutrally buoyant like EP fiber flies and schminnows for sight fishing and throwing at the mangroves. I caught all three reds and most of the snook on EP flies but also picked up a snook on a Clouser. You'll be in a great area and should have some great shots at snook, reds and tarpon.

Dalton

[DougyMillCove]

Thanks Dalton!

I'm really looking forward to it. I appreciate the heads up on what you were using. I'll probably pick a few up before I head down there.