Winter visit to Florida
The Florida Keys February 2006. I am visiting paradise with my friend Sjur Økland an experienced trout fisherman visiting Florida for the first time.
23. mar 2006
Sist oppdatert: 24. mar 2006
Our plan was mainly to flyfish for tarpon at night under the bridges. We had also planned to do a little fishing on the flats during daytime, and to spend one day canoeing in the Everglades. To our disposal I have a canoe stored with a friend in Florida, and another friend of mine has an inflatable, Zodiak style, boat with a 15 hp motor that I can borrow. Without these boats I would have to rent a canoe at Florida Bay Outfitters on Key Largo, or a kayak (sit-on-top will be best for flyfishing) at Backcountry Cowboy on Islamorada. By the way, the Backcountry Cowboy is one of the most helpful stores I have ever been in, so pay them a visit while you are there. Renting a boat with motors for night time fishing can be difficult as a lot of the boat rentals will only rent for daytime use. If you want to canoe in the Everglades from Flamingo, like we did, you can rent a canoe or a kayak in Flamingo. The trip to the Evergaldes was a lot of fun. We saw alligators, crocodiles, manatees and a lot of different birds. A cold front had passed through just before we arrived to Florida, and that had cooled the water a lot, and we saw almost no fish during our canoeing trip. I have been there before and it was not the way it usually is. Good places to try fly fishing from the canoe are Nine Mile Pond, West Lake, Coot Bay Pond and the Bear Lake Canoe trail (Coot Bay Pond-Coot Bay-Mud Lake-Bear Lake and back). Mud Lake and Bear Lake are “no motor” zones and can give excellent fishing. The first fishing nights under the bridges were slow due to the water temperature. As the water temperature increased so did the activity in the water. One night the tarpon started rising. For Sjur that was the first time seeing and hearing the splashes from tarpon eating jumping shrimps. The sound of refrigerators falling from the sky might be an over statement, but they are really making a lot of noise. Sjur used one of my 10 weight rods, but had his own reel. To prepare for the tarpon fishing he bought a new spool for his Tibor Everglades and filled it with 300 yards gel spun backing. The first few nights we only caught smaller tarpon in the 10-30 lbs range. They are a lot of fun, but I am used to seeing them bigger. Then one night a tarpon takes Sjur’s fly just upstream of one of the pilings, the fish goes on the opposite side of the piling and starts running downstream towards the Atlantic. We had to start the motor and drop the anchor to follow. On the Atlantic side of this bridge there are several navigational markers showing the boats where to go, and a lot of poles to show people that there is a flat and a no motor zone. Not the ideal place to play your first bigger tarpon in the darkness. The fish chose the best side of the markers, but went onto the flat. And that's when the fish really started running. I have never seen a reel handle turn like that before. And the fish took 2/3rds of the backing in one go. The line went around one of the poles on the flat, and I had to row our inflatable onto the flat while using the flashlight to see where the backing was heading. We got the backing free from the pole and 35 minutes later we had the fish in deeper water alongside the boat. Another 15 to 20 minutes later I got the Boga-Grip attached to the tarpon’s lower jaw, and Sjur had caught his biggest fish on a flyrod ever. The fish was 119 cm, and some of the “experts” we asked, estimated it at 50 lbs. A lot of people call a tarpon like this a baby tarpon, but it is a lot of fun for a Norwegian trout fisherman. On the top photo Sjur holds the fish (the lens is foggy, but who cares). On the lower photo Sjur holds one of the smaller tarpon he caught during our stay.During the day time we used a lot of time trying to find bonefish. In the beginning the water was quite cold and we saw a lot of barracudas and no bonefish. As shown on the pictures Sjur caught a couple. Actually when he started stripping fast enough he caught quite a few. As the water got warmer we started to see a few bonefish on the flat. Flyfishing for bonefish on your own with an inflatable is not easy in The Keys. We never caught one, but one night just before the sun went down saw a lot of tailing bonefish. And some of them were big ones. I know I will be back, and I know what I will do when I retire
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