Everglades Fishing – Captain Ned Small

High pressure dominating with clear skies, lots of clear water and an extremely low tide made even lower by an easterly breeze. It’s a little dicey getting around at low tide. Sophie Wyman and her Dad Jeff and I went sight fishing for reds with fly rods today. It was Sophie’s first sight fishing trip and by the end of the day we had sighted 15 redfish, 2 snooks, 23 sheepheads, 1 remora, a houndfish, 2 bonnet sharks, 19 raccoons, 3 bull sharks, 4 nurse sharks, 17 sting rays, a sea cucumber, 11 porpoises, 1 sea urchin, 5 diving osprey and a booster rocket. Congratulations to ten year old Sophie for landing her first redfish on a fly, by sight, Everglades Style.

The front is through and the weather is stabilizing. We’ve got beautiful weather with a  steady offshore breeze. Sight fishing should be excellent over the next few days. Alan Small in the photo with a snook he sighted on the flats near Rabbit Key.

Sight shooting red’s and snook, in the shallowest water we could find, all day long. Low tide for the whole day. At one point we wouldn’t cast to anything unless it’s dorsal fin was exposed. Dave Samuelson on the foredeck.

North to Northeast winds, clear water, beautiful weather even though it’s a little windy. Lots of sight fishing opportunities. Clear water means spooky fish and we are using smaller flies and lighter tippets as the red’s move up on the shoals with the cooling weather. Jonathan Peabody fished with me yesterday landing a nice snook, a barracuda, and sight shooting a bunch of nice red’s.

Clear water, gusting Northeasterly winds, and steady barometer. Combine that with a waning moon and a low tide at mid morning for what promises to be some excellent fishing this coming week. Captain Lee and I went out on recon this morning and saw a lot of nice red’s and snook. We also saw quite a few bonnet and blacktip sharks and managed to hook two of them but the battles were brief as we had no wire on board for a bite tippet. There were several others we might have hooked, (we were hooking one, getting bitten off, quick drawing another fly rod and firing from the hip.)  Lee pulled my redfish rig out but I had to stop him because the “Hallowed Redfish Fly” was attached. We are both busy tying shark flies.