Fishing, of course!
31 October 2005

 

This has been an exciting week for angler aboard the Gypsy.  Redfish and Snook have been cooperating on flies and artificial lures.  Seatrout have been abundant.  Ladyfish and jacks have produced a lot of excitement when fishing deeper flats.  A few mackerel and bluefish have been adding a bit of variety.  Earlier this week I traveled offshore to locate some bonito, but to no avail.  Neither did I find any tripletail or Spanish mackerel.  The water offshore has been cloudy because of the heavy winds associated with our most recent storm.  Fortunately that is past us and the off shore fun should begin again soon.

 

The redfish have been tailing on low water in the lee of the islands in the Island Bay NWR.  Top water plugs and jerk baits like the Exudes have been doing well.  The best flies are old standbys like the Estaz marabou and Gibby's Shrimp.  Another excellent fly is the Quan (sp) patterns.  These little crab flies are often taken while simply sinking to the bottom or with very little movement.

 

Snook have been a bit more fussy lately but Doug Forde, manager of CB's Saltwater Outfitters took seven snook to win the snook division of the Mangrove Cast Fly Fishers / CCA fall fly fishing tournament.   Jim Leiner fishing on Thursday took four reds and few snook on artificial lures along with several trout and ladyfish.  One ladyfish was 26 inches long.

 

Ron Whitely and I fished a morning in Charlotte Harbor with moderate success.  We took a lot of trout, a nice redfish and a couple of small snook on Estaz flies.  The trip culminated in a couple of gin & tonics and a bowl of the world's best gumbo at the Fishery Restaurant.  Well, someone has to do it.

 

Steve Gibson, outdoor editor for the Sarasota Herald Tribune, and I fished Friday to locate and eliminate spots for the upcoming fly fishing tournament held Saturday.  Artificial lures did a good job of locating fish that would bite.  Saturday's success was based on the info we gathered on Friday.  Gibby, as Steve is known locally, caught 35 or more seatrout and easily won the trout division.  My story is as good as it gets.  I managed a slam ( snook, trout and redfish) to win the overall tournament.  It was down to the last cast in the last spot before I landed a nice snook to fill out the slam.

 

I want to thank Capt. Rick Grassett of the Snook Fin-Addict for organizing and running the tournament.  He is truly a great asset to our community of anglers.  The proceeds of the tournament benefited the MCFF scholarship fund and the CCA/ Florida organization.  Congratulations, Rick, on a superb job.

 

I hope to see you all on the water this week.  If you would like to fish with me call 941-923-6095 or email me at captpete@floridaflyfishing.com

 

Fish Hard says "Boudreaux"

 

Pete