Everglades Fishing – Captain Ned Small

We’re looking for the wind to turn northeast in the morning and we’re heading out for the Bights. Big snook are beginning to move despite a strong cold front, and accompanying winds. There have been some cruisers in Lostman’s, and some nice snook moving into some of the shallow areas of the bays along the Wilderness Waterway. You just have to expect the wind at this time of year and shelter has been getting harder to find so we went up a tunneled over jungle creek  yesterday to a couple of small ponds in the backcountry. We caught fifteen snooks, all in the same year class, about twenty inches, and we hooked one in the thirty inch class but he broke us off pretty quick in the mangroves. Bring flies with weed guards!

South winds are bringing in the warm water and the tarpon are coming with it. All giants, all in the hundred pound class. We are hunting sleepers in the coves out front, it’s been too windy to get down to the creeks but we are watching for the chance. Kevin Becker sighting over a dozen sleepers today and hooking up with one giant about 110 pounds.

Brian Pink landed three snook today. All on fly. 18 – 26, inches. Everyone is griping about how poor the fishing has been. We got a few chances at red’s too, but they won’t bite. Gulf Temperature 64 degrees.

Tarpon. A school has moved into Lake Mysteriosa. We fought one today, about 90 pounds,  for eleven minutes on an ultralight loaded with eight pound power pro on a Shimano 2000. We had this fish to the boat three times before she got away.

The warming trend has the snook on the move. Here’s Al Trompler with one we got today in the backcountry near Lostman’s River.

We saw the first school of tarpon today. It was way down south. There were several giants in the 150 pound class and a dozen or more 80-100 pounders. We tried for an hour to get one to bite, alas. The weather is perfect, full moon in 3 days.