Everglades Fishing – Captain Ned Small

Lest anyone be offended, before I get any e-mails, we kept six red’s and two snook over the three days, for six people.   …Everything else was released. The blood and guts was from the ladyfish chunks, …(we did kill the ladyfish,) and shrimp carcasses, (we killed the shrimp, too,) that lined the decks and permeated the furniture; the guides on the ‘meat sticks, were’ blooming ladyfish hide,’ I had to use a pressure washer to blow the fish slime off of them.. The filets were taken to the Seafood Depot, and prepared in every way, blackened, fried, scallopinied? Only hours from the sea, for a feast for the family, that Talus and  Weston caught, over Thanksgiving.

Captain Wayne Krystopa and I have been fishing together for the past three days. We were guiding Tim Rawls and his two boys, Talus and Weston, and their Grandfather “Pops.” Our only objective was to make a mess, catching lots of fish. We used ‘tipped’ jigs and free lined ‘dead ladyfish chunks.’ We caught, between the two boats, fifty redfish, 23 ladyfish, 17 trout, 7 snook, (big ones,) 57 catfish, (the boys kept a running count every day,) bonnet and blacktip sharks, a sea robin, a flounder, a bluefish, 5 puffers, a lizardfish, 5 jacks, 2 jewfish,  11 mangrove snappers, 1 manatee, and we got broken off a dozen times by mystery fish that the boys described alternately as, “a tuna, a wahoo, a giant snook, a tarpon, a giant redfish, a marlin, a goliath grouper, a great white.” It’s going to take weeks to bleach all the blood and guts out of my boat.

Bill Blanton and I went out at daylight today on a recon’ mission to check the Islands and scout for fish. We went as far south as Tom’s Bight and then turned north again going up Chatam River to have a look at the Wilderness Waterway. The worst damage is along the coast in the outer islands, mangrove trees are everywhere in the water and especially washed up on the flats. The “Back,” is not so bad. There’s a lot of water back there, volumes of black water, but we did spot one Big Snook sunning in a quiet cove. Outside the water is still a little murky but the offshore trend continues and the water is slowly clearing. We checked a couple of spots, sighted several reds while the tide was low, (low rising at sunrise,) and actually managed to catch two of them. There weren’t many that we could see, when the tide came in it was just too turbid, but the ones we spotted earlier were eager to bite. It’s eerie out there, we never saw another soul the whole day. Here’s a few photo’s.