Everglades Fishing – Captain Ned Small

The tides have switched around, low tide is approaching midday. Over the next few days there will be a high falling tide at dawn, get on it. Extremely low tides following the New Moon. Lots of Googans aground on the shoals. Jeff Wyman and Gary Sherman skying out an hour before dawn for a trek Down South. They hooked up with four snook and three red’s before ten o-clock. I won’t tell you how many we landed because, as Gary say’s: “Who’s Counting?”  Me, of course. We might have landed more except Gary likes to cast to all of the fish, at the same time, all the time. Oh, and don’t invite him in because he’ll clean out your fly tying bench of all your best flies on the way out.

Captain Bruce, Doug and I went south for a few hours of relaxation after “The Big Weekend”.  We left an hour before sunrise and fished the secret spot at low tide. Doug VanSlyke and Bruce Miller gettin’ it done with five red’s and two snook before ten o’clock. Home by eleven. Largest was 29″.

Thanks to my teammates Doug Van Slyke and Bill Blanton for their outstanding performance in the RedSnook Tournament. We fished hard both days and won the fly fishing championship with six red’s and seven snook. And the big one got away!

There are more red’s showing, most of them are around 20 inches but there are some larger ones as well. We’ve sighted several in the 30 inch class but were unable to feed them. Captain Bruce Miller has done a little better getting two last week on fly With Tom Kukk, 28 and 29 inches. Clear water at low tide, excellent sight fishing, the best bite is still at dawn, the afternoons are too hot! Get out there early and get out of the sun at midday. The snook are shifting around a little, the bait is on the move as fall approaches and we’ll be watching the beaches around Lostman’s River for the next big bite.

We are catching snook, every day, on fly. They are year class, for the most part, about 25 inches. There are exceptions at both ends, some 15 inches and then some a little bigger. Reds are beginning to show and we are getting a few shots at them on low water. Beautiful weather, thunderstorms every afternoon, fish in the morning, dawn patrol, get home by noon and stay out of the heat of the day. Doug VanSlyke landed snook from the secret spot.

The snook are in the grasses after finger mullet. There are thousands of baitfish and the snook are roaming in gangs, blowing up three at a time, cartwheeling after showers of minnows.  These are year class snook about 21 to 30 inches but they are growing fast. It’s unpredictable fishing …next to impossible to compete with so much live bait, still we hooked thirteen today, landing seven, the longest being 26″. Oh, yeah, …the shortest was about 10″. We’re looking for reds, September 1 we should expect to see them.