October 05, 2009

Florida's Shallows Rising High!

10.09 - Florida's Shallows Rising to the Occasion...

Location: Everglades National Park, Florida

PELAGIC Pro Team Captain Benny Blanco checks back in with The Journal to give us an update on Florida's inshore action down in the Everglades. High tides are pushing water up in the shallows bringing in an array of bait and shallow water predators.

Capt. Benny Reports in...

If you've spent any time on the water recently you are likely wondering the same as most of us... Where did all this water come from? Certainly, high water is not generally ideal for sight fishing, but how often do you have perfect conditions anyway? In the Park it led to fewer boats on the water and while it was occasionally difficult to find the fish, it also granted many great days.

When floating grass was light, we used topwater lures like Rapala Skitterwalks and subsurface lures like Rapala Twitchin' Raps. When the grass was bad, we used weedless jerkbaits like GULP! 5" Jerk shads and Bass Assassin 4" Sea Shads. Fly Fisherman had great success with small shrimp and minnow patterns... Although, none beat the performance of the patterns Ashley of Don's Bait & Tackle tied for me earlier this month. All of the flies he gave me caught dozens of fish before they were either completely destroyed or gifted to large Tarpon that simply wouldn't give them back. Thanks Ash... great flies!

Fly Thief
I had a day on the water with good friend, Rainer Shael ( http://www.rs-env.com ) and his friend, Kohler Nordlund. Rainer and I fished together once previously, using spin tackle all day and admittedly, he had a tough time. He mentioned he was more accurate with a fly rod and is he ever... this trip was very different. He and Kohler wore out the Snook and Tarpon for a good amount of time... every time a fish would miss Kohler's Skitterwalk, Rainer would drop the fly on the fish's head for a hook-up. He was deadly with his 8 wt. set up and an Ashley fly... it was a great day.

Rainer was on almost every time I looked up...

Ashley's fly was just too good for this nice Snook to pass up... excellent work, Rainer!

If you remove the stock O-ring on the Rapala Twitchin' Raps, the lure tends to stick real close to the surface... handy when dealing with tall grass and still very effective in attracting the fish.