It's been a long while, darned nearly six weeks, since my last report but the fish have been biting... By the first week of October we were still in summer mode, very hot days with some rain every afternoon and it was that way the first three weeks of this month. All of that came to an end last weekend when we finally got our first cold front along with the winds and just plain bad weather. By Wednesday the water temps at dawn had dropped ten degrees, showing just under 70 at the ramp. The water temps ranged from as low as 67 all the way up to 71 degrees during the day so we're finally into a solid fall transition in my areas.
Bait along the Gulf coast of the 'Glades has been really thick now for some weeks - mostly small threadfins, medium pilchards (scaled sardines, actually), and finger mullet. The bait gets worked over top to bottom from first light now and are marked by birds and the topwater action provided by everything from spanish mackeral on down. With the bait generally holding within a short distance to mangrove shorelines a guide's job can be as simple as netting the bait, then moving to the nearest downed trees along any outside shoreline where slot and over-slot reds, small to medium snook, little tarpon and everything else attacks your offering on sight. The recent cold snap chased away all the big tarpon but my guess is that they'll show up again (might be there now...) since we're not forecasted for another cold front in the next week or so. Whenever the action along the coast slows down it's a simple matter of working up into the many rivers that drain into the Gulf to find strong action from grouper and snapper.. This is still my favorite time of the year.
Although the bait makes live baiting an easy choice the fish are still responding well to lures and flies. A new fly that I've been impressed with is the Olson's Slider by Dave Olson, who happens to be the guy that runs the Fly Shop of Miami. I was lucky enough to have him on my skiff one day... It works exactly the way a finger mullet moves.... and it's weedless. As far as lures it's been Gulp tails on my own 1/8 or 1/4oz jigheads, soft plastics, and spoons. A little live chumming helps get everything started. The fish up in Whitewater Bay are starting to be more active as well. In a few weeks that's where most of the action will be as fish begin their slow migration back inside pushed by falling water temps.
Since there's very few visitors down here now and that situation will only change as we get into the tourist season in December, most days I hardly see another boat on the water. Backcountry heaven!
Here's a few photos of what we've been doing...
[img][img] Dave Olson with a nice trout along the coast...
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All three species caught at the same river spot, the goliath was about 40lbs, the gag grouper just under the 24" minimum, and that mangrove was almost 24"...
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Local anglers Bill Heitman and Dan Kapp with typical fall redfish, Bill's son got one a little bigger...
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Bill Heitman again, this time with a 60lb tarpon hooked up on 12lb line. It was one of two 60's hooked at the same time up inside a river. I was too busy to take more than one photo since they were both at the boat at the same time....
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Jerry Stephenson with a nice snook on light line ready to be released to fight again.
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Young Nico's first redfish, ready to go home for dinner...
