Everglades Fishing – Captain Ned Small

My faith is renewed. I’ve always  felt that if I could have a choice, moon phase, tidal range, moonset, moonrise, time of year, (what’s the best time of year to fish down here,?) time of day, time of low tide etc.  I would choose the weather. If I had three wishes I would add the month of May as my second wish and the first day of the first quarter moon as my third. Having gotten that far I’d gamble for a gently falling tide all day long. Jerry McKnight on the foredeck from before sunrise this morning until low tide this afternoon, we found fish in 007’s, Lee’s Ferry, The Looking Glass, The Corner Pocket, and No-name Bight. We had at least two dozen shots at laid up fish and rollers, tussling with four of them, trying to get the hook set, and getting a nice, albeit brief hookup with a sixty pounder that spit the hook in mid-air.

We’ve been chasing redfish lately, there’s some pretty good fishing for them right now. We’ve had a few days when we’ve sighted over a hundred fish, including snook, on the flats. Smaller fish, for once outnumber the larger ones and we’ve caught quite a few of them. I’m hoping that this is significant, (we usually catch only larger red’s,) I’ve heard that high numbers of smaller fish is an indication of a healthy fishery and perhaps this is the case here and may bode well for the future.  And here’s Todd Cox with a tarpon from yesterday.