Everglades Winter Fishing Report
This time of year is full of surprises. Hot, cold, really cold, foggy, rain, sunshine, what the hell! The only thing consistent about fishing this time of year is inconsistency. The fishing is the same, catching them, not catching them, and my favorite, seeing them and not catching them. But, after all of that, there are those days that are truly awesome. Back in January I had Jon A. out. We started out in the back and caught some Snook, not too many but at least one real nice one.
We decided to poke out front to see if we could find some Redfish. While looking for Reds I spotted a really big tail up the bank. Knowing January is not the right time of year, there was only one fish it could belong to. I poled up and got into position, Jon made a great cast and as luck would have it he hooked a huge Tarpon. Now a 100 lb Tarpon might not be “huge” to some, but when it’s on a Sage 8 ft 8 wt, it’s huge! After a bunch of jumps, we got it up next to the boat. There were a number of sharks swimming around so I grabbed the leader and just popped it off.
After a quick celebration, we knew we had to get the Redfish. And that we did, just a short push down the bank Jon caught a nice Red. All in all, we didn’t really catch that many fish but we caught the right ones, an Everglades Grand Slam, and they were all big.