cgarofalo
07-21-09, 04:39 PM
Got back from the everglades last week. We had a blast. Wind was blowing out of the west the entire time we were there. This muddied up the "outside," and made fishing for the large spawning snook almost impossible. We had a guide the first day, and we fished nearshore wrecks. We ended up catching permit, snook, trout, the entire trashcan slam, and a few jewfish with the guide.
We fished the rest of the week in the backcountry. According to many of the locals, the backcountry should have been void of large snook this time of the year........boy were they wrong. We absolutely slayed them. We averaged 30-40 snook a day fishing flukes, topwaters, gulp on jigheads, doa's, flies, and live finger mullet. We also picked up trashcan slams, trout, reds, baby poons (10-30 lbs), sharks, black drum, tons of mangrove snapper and a mayan cichlid. We ended up catching 6 keeper snook. 2 28 inchers, a 29, 2 @ 30, and a 32. At least half of the other fish that we caught would have fallen into the old slot.....we ended up with a lot of 24-26 inch fish. Didn't matter though, snook are out of season during the spawn, so all fish were returned to the water unharmed.
I caught the big snook of the trip on a green backed clouser deep minnow on my 8wt. He was landed with a borrowed net from the only other boat we saw all week....talk about lucky (we had lost our net a few hours earlier when we failed to stow it before a run). I also stuck an 8 lb jack in a 10 ft wide creek on the fly, this turned into quite a battle with fly line snaking around the bends of the creek. I ended up just short of the slam with the flyrod, Lots of snook, a tarpon, a trout, a few snapper, but no redfish on the fly.
The craziest moment of the trip came when a 23-25 inch snook was landed on a 5 ft ultralite with 4 lb test and no bite tippet. We stopped at a downed mangrove to catch snapper for dinner. Since the snapper average 8-11 inches, an untralite was broken out to make them a bit sportier. Of course the first cast resulted in a hookup with a large snook. The snook tore into the mangroves and buried itself way in the back where it thrashed around. Just when we thought that all was lost, the snook lazily swam out, and we were able to land it. Somehow the 4lb test withstood the mangrove roots, the snooks teeth (which bit through 30 and 40 lb bite leader on several occasions with my flyrod), and the snooks razor sharp gillplates. The angler that caught the fish is a Catholic priest.....so he may have had a little bit of extra help.
Anyways, sorry about the long winded post. In short, the fishing was awesome.
We fished the rest of the week in the backcountry. According to many of the locals, the backcountry should have been void of large snook this time of the year........boy were they wrong. We absolutely slayed them. We averaged 30-40 snook a day fishing flukes, topwaters, gulp on jigheads, doa's, flies, and live finger mullet. We also picked up trashcan slams, trout, reds, baby poons (10-30 lbs), sharks, black drum, tons of mangrove snapper and a mayan cichlid. We ended up catching 6 keeper snook. 2 28 inchers, a 29, 2 @ 30, and a 32. At least half of the other fish that we caught would have fallen into the old slot.....we ended up with a lot of 24-26 inch fish. Didn't matter though, snook are out of season during the spawn, so all fish were returned to the water unharmed.
I caught the big snook of the trip on a green backed clouser deep minnow on my 8wt. He was landed with a borrowed net from the only other boat we saw all week....talk about lucky (we had lost our net a few hours earlier when we failed to stow it before a run). I also stuck an 8 lb jack in a 10 ft wide creek on the fly, this turned into quite a battle with fly line snaking around the bends of the creek. I ended up just short of the slam with the flyrod, Lots of snook, a tarpon, a trout, a few snapper, but no redfish on the fly.
The craziest moment of the trip came when a 23-25 inch snook was landed on a 5 ft ultralite with 4 lb test and no bite tippet. We stopped at a downed mangrove to catch snapper for dinner. Since the snapper average 8-11 inches, an untralite was broken out to make them a bit sportier. Of course the first cast resulted in a hookup with a large snook. The snook tore into the mangroves and buried itself way in the back where it thrashed around. Just when we thought that all was lost, the snook lazily swam out, and we were able to land it. Somehow the 4lb test withstood the mangrove roots, the snooks teeth (which bit through 30 and 40 lb bite leader on several occasions with my flyrod), and the snooks razor sharp gillplates. The angler that caught the fish is a Catholic priest.....so he may have had a little bit of extra help.
Anyways, sorry about the long winded post. In short, the fishing was awesome.