Flamingo / Chokoloskee and Upper Keys Fishing Report

July, 2006

      "Excellent Summer Fishing"

  The HEAT is on! Here we are in the middle of summer and the most 
important players are biting. Snook fishing has been awesome in the 
Glades backcountry. Very few boaters are out so there is plenty of space 
and fish –if you’ll just come on out. Trout and snapper fishing has been 
good but the sizes aren’t as great as two months ago however; there are 
plenty. Tripletail fishing has been tops with specimens over ten pounds 
taken. They are biting a shrimp with a small split shot added for 
weight. Large tarpon have also been hitting some of the lures being 
tossed. 

  The Whitewater Bay ramp is OPEN and the bugs are really not that 
bad. Bait has been hard to find recently however; all the snook we are 
getting are on lures. I like the outgoing tide for snook best. Pole or 
troll the shorelines and look for coves and moving water. They'll stack 
in certain areas like those weird SW winds we’ve been having. We are 
doing anywhere from 3-12 snook on any given day this time of year 
including some big ones, over 8 pounds. 

  This is a great time of the year to try
for something different while in this backcountry inshore or 
offshore. We have had great success locating and landing permit off the 
Gulf of Mexico aboard the larger boat. We have actually been able to get 
these hard-fighting fish to the boat quickly and avoid having them eaten 
by sharks and Goliath grouper. A tip on permit: use a release buoy to 
anchor your boat, if fishing near structure. This will allow you to 
chase the permit once hooked up near a reef, marker, and other 
structure. The permit will often move away quickly from dangerous 
surroundings and your ample braid line (recommended) supply will 
suffice. Go for the chase like Ed Bieksha did with the permit in the 
photograph-we chased it all the way into the boat! Tripletail is one 
other type of fishing that is a lot of fun. Tripletail are an 
unpredictable fun but when we see them floating near traps, they can be 
caught so long as they bite. In this environment I tend to favor a no 
stretch line because even if it gets wrapped around the buoy and nylon 
rope, it can still catch the fish. Keep the boat on plane until you spot 
one, then slow down and go back at and try with a long cast. Just look 
at the picture of Jacob Lefkowitz with the eleven-pound three-lobed fish

"Keep Tight Lines" Capt. Ariel Cabrera of Florida Light Tackle Charters!

Flamingo / Chokoloskee and Upper Keys Fishing Report

October, 2005

 

Fishing out of Flamingo lately has been excellent.  Just about every day with artificials we have been hooking small tarpon, snook, redfish and trout.  Fishing this time of year is good because of all the rain we get.  The runoff goes through the Everglades and eventually makes its way to Florida Bay.  This fresh water flowing into Florida Bay really turns on the fish.  The fresh water causes shrimp to hatch and tons of fish move into feed on these shrimp.  The tarpon fishing has mainly been a morning thing, where we fish
them rolling or tailing in a couple of feet of water.  Our best bait lately has been a silver Bass-assin soft plastic, but if you fly fish they will eat just about any fly you throw at them.  After the morning tarpon we fish snook and reds.  Basically we start looking for read tailing or waking and when a snook busts some mullet we throw to him and catch him.  The only drawback to this time of year is the bugs at the Flamingo boat ramp.  They are bad, but once you leave the ramp and get out on the water there are no bugs the rest of the day.  There have been some trout around, but they are pretty small.  The only other thing we have going is sharks.  These guys are always around, especially now when the water is warm.  These sharks are mostly bulls, black tips, and lemons.  They will readily eat bait and if you do it right they will eat top water plugs and flies.  this fishing will last until we get our first cold front in October and then it will be time for a different type of fishing.  

Tight lines and good fishing...      
 

Capt. Eric Herstedt

Everglades Nat'l Park
Tall Tails Fishing
Capt. Tony Traad
02-04-05

January has been fairly typical as far as the weather is
concerned. That means that the cold fronts have been marching down the
peninsula every 3-5 days from the great white north bringing cold and
windy weather. That's made the fly fishing a little tough most of the
time. The wind helps keep things cool during the day and prevents the
waters from warming up. This has been keeping the fish deeper. Fishing
the deep creeks and channels for snook, reds, black drum, sheep head and
trout with live bait has been fair to good as long as the winds don't
turn the waters up to much. If the water in the creeks and channels
looks like coffee heavy with cream, try to find cleaner water if the
conditions give you some options. On the very nice days between fronts,
the fishing has been great. On a recent trip in the canoe, Wilson
Langworthy of New York and I, caught 25 to 30 snook with the largest
snook weighing in around 17 pounds. We also caught a few reds, trout
and a black drum that tipped the scale in the low 20's. Good luck and
good fishing.


Florida Light Tackle Charters
Capt. Tony Traad

 Flamingo, Everglades National Park

Fishing Report By Capt. Eric Herstedt
12-4-04

The past couple weeks I have been spending almost everyday fishing out of
Flamingo in the Everglades.  The fishing has been pretty good with a couple of
excellent days mixed in.  Since our wintertime is just starting up we are
getting lots of seatrout.  Seatrout range from 14 to 20 inches and you can catch
them on at least every other cast right now.  If we fish for them all day this
time of year we will generally catch somewhere around 100 a day.  I have been
doing a lot of live bait fishing for snook, grouper and redfish.  The snook
fishing has been hot one day and cold the next due to constantly varying temps.,
but we have been catching lots of gag grouper and some big goliath grouper
around the mangroves which is a blast.  When you hook a grouper around the
mangroves they are the most challenging fish to get out.  The tarpon action has been
slow but last week we did get one about 90 lbs. on a plug in the backcountry
of Flamingo to complete a slam.
 

Everglades National Park And Biscayne Bay 11-25-04

by Capt. Tony Traad

The weather continues to be very nice and the fishing has been good.  On recent trips out of Flamingo in the Everglades National Park I have been live baiting with shrimp and finger mullet.  Doc Tronner of Miami and his son caught a dozen or so redfish, several black drum and sheep head and we went four of seven on snook.  Doctor Linda Robinson also of Miami had a nice day catching a dozen snook, two dozen or so redfish and we went. Charlie Shed of Wyoming caught several redfish, a dozen or so nice mangrove snapper and several gator trout on fly.  The next day Charlie brought his friend, Doctor Dick Souvron of Miami.  We bait fished and caught six or so jewfish up to 20 pounds, went one for two on snook and one for two on tarpon.  In Biscayne Bay, Charlie and I found a lot of bonefish in schools ranging from just a few fish to 60-70 fish per school.  We were fly fishing and had two fish on and lost them both.  That's a brief summary of the last few trips. I wish you happy holidays and good fishing.

Tony Capt. Tony Traad

Everglades National Park To Key Biscayne
by
Captain Tony Traad  10-20-04


Between all the hurricanes and traveling, it has been a while since I've been able to sit down and type out a fishing report. As you can imagine, August and September found Florida under a constant state of hurricane watches and warnings and those months were slow for business.  I spent more time putting up and taking down hurricane shutters than I spent on the water.

October in the Everglades National Park has been a good month and things seem to be getting back to normal.  I traveled to Venice Louisiana for the I.F.A. Redfish Tour thinking that the tropical storm season was over and found myself fishing the two day tournament in the middle of tropical storm Mathew.  My partner and I had a tough tournament, the storm blew out all the spots we had scouted and we found ourselves trying to scout new spots in unfamiliar water in the mist of a tropical storm. Needless to say we didn't do so well. We did manage to catch our four redfish; however, they were small fish and didn't help us much. We placed 45th out of about 117 registered boats. Congratulations go out to those teams who managed to find big reds and place well in the tournament. It was not easy fishing and doing well was no small task.

October has brought the bait into the Everglades. Lots of bait from pilchards to mullet are being hammered by tarpon and snook out on the beaches and in the East Cape Canal area. Dr. Linda Robinson of Miami took a day off from the emergency room and came fishing with me. We fished the creeks in and around East Cape Canal and caught a few reds and a couple of nice snook. We then fished the mouth of East Cape Canal for tarpon. The tarpon were slamming big 12 inch mullet. We hooked a half dozen or so tarpon but never got one to the boat. We did hook something very big that we never managed to lift off the bottom. I figure it was probably a big jewfish.  Ron and Donna Krell of Tallahassee came down for some fishing and we spent our first day fishing in the glades. We cast netted some live bait and drifted off Middle Cape Beach for tarpon. The tarpon were crashing bait all around us. It was the old story of there being too much bait and it took some time for our baits to be found and eaten. We had several fish on and caught one nice tarpon in the 60lb range. After tarpon fishing, we fell back into the creeks and caught some nice redfish and snook

The next day Ron, Donna and I changed pace and hit South Biscayne Bay for bones and permit. We found lots of bones in big schools all day long. We caught one and had several break off on mangrove shouts. At the end of the day we headed out to broad creek and found plenty of big permits. We had one on but lost him. The total number of fish actually caught was not impressive but the total number of fish seen was. It's been a while since I have seen several thousand bones in one day and that's about what we saw.
Dr. Richard Goldberg of North Carolina brought his pal Amery from Paris France fishing and we headed into the glades. We hit the beaches and East Cape Canal area. I found plenty of bait and tarpon again in and around Middle Cape. Amery caught his first tarpon ever weighing between 70 and 80lbs. Amery fought the tarpon for about an hour before boating it. When we returned to our spot, the tarpon action had quit. Although the bait numbers seemed to be about the same as the past week or so, the tarpon numbers appear to have dipped some. Despite the dip in tarpon numbers, there are still plenty around to fish for; it's just not a ridiculous amount of tarpon. We fell back into the creeks after that and hit several spots catching a red here and a red there until we hit our last spot. That's when the fishing really got good. In our last spot we caught 16 snook ranging from small to large, about 20 to 25 redfish in the 2 to 6 pound range and several medium sized black drum.  All in all, October has been a good month to get out and fish with plenty of bait stirring up action and the tropics are finally quit.

Until next time, get out and go fishing.

                                                                            Captain Tony Traad

Everglades National Park (Flamingo)

Capt. Tony Traad

Everglades National Park (Flamingo)

On Friday and Saturday, March 5^th and 6^th, I fished the I.F.A. Redfish Tour with my partner, Capt. Alan Beraquit of Port Charlotte.  The tournament was held out of Jean Lafitte, Louisiana which is just outside of New Orleans.  We placed 17^th out of 97 teams which was good enough to take a bus ride to the Super Dome for a top 25 weigh-in.  The red fishing is outstanding in Louisiana and I highly recommend a redfish trip to the Sportsman’s State.  Among our catches was a redfish in the 40-45 lb range and a 50lb alligator gar.

Capt. Tony Traad

Everglades National Park (Flamingo)

Everglades National Park (Flamingo) and

Flamingo, Biscayne Bay and Upper Keys
Fishing Report January, 2004

 The fishing in Flamingo has been excellent and that is where most of my trips have been out of the past few weeks.  In Key Largo and Biscayne Bay it has been slow which it usually is this time of year.   In Flamingo I have been fishing in the backcountry and in Florida Bay.
Out back we have been fishing for big tarpon in the morning with either live bait, plugs or flies and in the afternoon it's been snook and reds.  The tarpon are not around all winter,  just during the warm spells between the cold fronts.  When they are in though, there are tons of them and they are usually  very stupid which is a good thing.  On the Florida Bay side of Flamingo the baitfishing and sightfishing have both been awesome even when it got down below fifty degrees.  Baitfishing has included lots of redfish, blackdrum, a few snook and seatrout by the hundreds.  It seems like the trout
fishing this year is going to be really good.  The trout so far are averaging eighteen inches and you can catch on almost every cast on whatever tackle you want.  The sightfishing has been strictly for reds which are huge in the wintertime, most from six to thirteen pounds.
The best trip I had over the past couple weeks was in the backcountry, here it is.  We started off throwing plugs for tarpon, on the second cast we hooked a monster and caught her after a 35 minute battle.  The fish was  conservatively 150lbs and this was on a 12 pound spinner.  That was enough for tarpon so I decided to go sightfishing for reds and snook.  Usually this is tough in the wintertime, but I had a great caster with me so we decided to try it.  We ended up catching three reds 6 to 7 pounds and two snook one 29 inches and the other 35 inches this was truly a great catch.  Not bad for a day of sighfishing in the wintertime with artificials.
 
Tight Lines and Good Fishing,
Capt. Eric Herstedt
www.Floridalighttacklecharters.com
1-866-4-TARPON (482-7766) / 1-941-637-0500

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Flamingo and Upper Keys Report 3/9/03
Capt. Eric Herstedt

 
The past few weeks have been great.  Lots of big tarpon and basically everything else as well.  We have had great trips every day except for a couple when the wind blew west which is not good for Flamingo.  I'll just give a report of a few particular charters.
The first Dr. Marty Arostegui, the purpose was to fish for world record sharks on fly, that was just the beginning though!  We did hook six sharks on fly that would have all been world records but, we were using four and six lb. tippet so they all broke off.  That's OK he will be back soon and we WILL get those records set!!  So that day in the morning before the tide was right to shark fish I decided to look for other fish.  It turned out pretty darn well.  Marty got shots at a good amount of tailing reds with the fly and then about a half hour into it I see what I think is a shark coming in about 8 inches of water.  Wrong it is a snook and its huge and cruising with her fins out of the water (no pressure at all, THUMP THUMP, THUMP THUMP!).  So he took a shot with the fly and it didn't work out.  So I kindly ask him at this point to pick up the spinning rod and he proceeded to make a great cast and catch this thing.  The snook was nineteen lbs.(see photo gallery) the biggest I have ever seen in Flamingo and we caught him sightfishing, this is truly one of the best fish I have been involved with.  So now on our way to the shark spot I decide to check out a spot for bonefish on the way and of course they were there.  Some tailing, some pushing wakes and mixed in non other than some more tailing redfish (NO LIE).  Now its not like this everyday, but when fishing is good at Flamingo there is no place I would rather be in the world.  So then we do our shark on fly thing and we lose six, so its almost time to go in, but on the way I decide to check on spot for tarps because Marty can throw the fly very well.  So we then hooked two big tarpon on fly and yes they were only in two feet of water.  Both fish jumped off, but that's OK because we at least got to hear their gills rattle.  So that's it.... just another day in Flamingo.  I could tell you more stories from the past couple weeks, but they sound a lot like this one.  I wouldn't want to bore you.  Check out the photo gallery for sure as there are some great tarpon pics.

 
Bonefishing in Biscayne Bay and the Upper Keys has been great also due to this warm weather.  I only went a couple days' on both trips though we managed to get shots at lots of bones and some permit too.

I hope it stays like it is because its awesome!!

Tight Lines and Good Fishing,
Capt. Eric Herstedt

Flamingo and Keys Fishing Report 1/19/03
Capt. Eric Herstedt

 Cold front, after cold front, after cold front, did I mention we've had a few cold fronts down here!  That's OK though I have still managed to find loads of fish, bring on that nasty cold.  For my flyfishing trips this past week they have been slow.  There were lots of redfish and even a few snook on the flats, but they are so cold, they have just been laying down in the mud warming up.  If you can get a small fly right on there nose they'll eat it, but that's easier said than done.  Usually at some point later in the day they do come out of the mud and feed a little more aggressively, but it doesn't last very long.  The trout fishing on the fly has still been consistent, with fish from fifteen to eighteen inches.

Now for the bait fishing.  For starters I'll just tell you all what we caught yesterday and that has pretty much been the theme for a few weeks now.  It was supposed to be a fly trip, but it was blowing 15-20 and it was 41 degrees in the morning, in Flamingo!!!  So I quickly suggested that we abort the fly and bait fish in some protected waters out of the wind.  We caught 18 redfish, 6 black drum, 8 trout, 1 jewfish, 10 big sheepshead and a handful of snappers.  Then we decided to go in early because it was getting colder and it started to rain,  yea 41 degrees and rain, in a boat.  I recommend trying that if you haven't its just a blast!  This bait fishing is with shrimp on jigs in eight to ten feet and the fish are just piled up in holes on the bottom trying to keep warm.  Its a fish on every cast, really a lot of fun.

I hope at least the bait fishing at least keeps up like it has, but we need some warmer weather to turn on those fish on the flats.
That's it for now.

Tight Lines and Good Fishing,
Capt. Eric Herstedt 

Keys and Flamingo Fishing Report 1/6/03
Capt. Eric Herstedt

The past week or so I have been fishing almost every day and we have caught a lot of fish except for one day.  The only fly-fishing we have been doing this week has been for sea trout and jacks.  The trout have really been schooled up in large numbers from fifteen to nineteen inches.  For the trout we have been using clouser minnows and poppers, which the trout have been eating the heck out of.  That has been it for the fly, but when it comes to bait we have been destroying the fish.  Lots of redfish, snook, trout, black drum, Sheephead, snapper, lemon sharks, grouper, and even a couple bites from big tarpon.  Yes, that's right all within the past week!  The conditions have been windy and cold so for all of the these species we have just been fishing protected waters out of the wind.  We are using shrimp on jigs on the bottom in deep water.  While doing this you can use anything from a 8lb rod to a 12lb rod, but if you use the lighter rod the snook will usually break you off.  The big tarpon only came in from the Gulf for about a day and a half then they were gone.  They came in small numbers this time because the water warmed up a lot only for a day or two.  Eventually the water will stay warm for a week or so and this when in Flamingo we will get thousands of poons even in the winter time!  As for bonefishing I have not been in about a week, but I'm sure it has been difficult. 

That's it for this report and let's hope for some warmer weather so I can get back to sight fishing reds, bones, and tarpon.

Tight Lines and Screaming Drags,
Capt. Eric Herstedt

Fishing Report 12/20/02
Upper Keys and Flamingo-Everglades National Park

The past week and a half we have managed to do pretty good overall considering the line up of cold fronts we have had down here.  My week started off with bonefishing in the Upper Keys.  I had one angler aboard who was a very good caster and we made the decision to just fish with shrimp due to twenty mph winds.  At the end of eight hours of really hard fishing he had hooked three bones of which we only boated one.  That one fish though was ten and a half pounds, it was a monster.  He measured out at thirty-one inches long.  All of my other charters over the past week have been out of Flamingo and one we fish out of Islamorada, but we ran over to Flamingo.  When the water is as cold as it has been I really prefer to fish Flamingo because there are so many different species to fish for I can always find something to do.  Two of the trips were being fly fisherman.  After giving them a couple of quick pointers on both trips my customers managed to catch their first saltwater fishes on fly.  Both trips we caught a good amount of spotted sea trout from sixteen to twenty inches.  These sea trout really provide a great opportunity if you are just starting off at flying fishing in saltwater.  Some other fish on fly we also caught were mangrove snappers and ladyfish.  The sea trout though are really coming in full force due to the cold water.
Yesterday I had one of the best snook days I have ever had in Flamingo.  I had two fisherman with me and luckily we were fishing with shrimp. I say luckily because some days it just pays to use bait instead of the fly.  Yesterday was really one of those days.  I pulled into a spot along a mangrove shoreline were I told my guys I expected to catch jewfish, redfish, and maybe a snook or two.  "A snook or two" yea right, two hours later we had eighteen snook from six to nine pounds!  Not to mention we lost a least another ten snook due to the mangroves and other problems.  Oh yea mixed in with the snook were five redfish up to six pounds and some snappers.  It was absolute chaos for those couple hours that even left one angler with an injured wrist.  That's when I know I've done my job, when my anglers are cradling there arms when they walk off my boat.

This was definitely a fun week for me and all my anglers.  I hope things remain the same for next week.

PS: Look on in the photo gallery in a week or so and I'll have proof of all those snook and that bonefish.

Tight Lines and Screaming Drags,
Capt. Eric Herstedt

Fishing Report 12/09/02

Fishing this past week has definitely changed into the winter pattern.  With a couple of strong cold fronts the tarpon have all left, but some other fish have arrived.

Sea trout are showing up in full force eating flies, plugs, and bait all the way up to twenty-four inches.  The redfish fishing has been all right, due to the chilly water they don't like to eat as well as they usually do.  We have found ways to catch plenty this week though from twenty to twenty-seven inches.  I had one shark charter this week which is usually tough when it is cold, but we managed to catch one bull shark and one big black tip shark.  As for the bonefishing, we have been getting a decent amount of shots especially in the middle of the day when the sun is high.

One great fish caught with me this week was a twenty-six and a half pound jewfish caught by Robert Fisher.  The fish was caught on a pinfish on 15 lb. line.  Robert somehow managed to pull this fish out of the mangroves.
 

That's it for this week.

Tight Lines and Good Fishing,
Capt. Eric Herstedt

Upper Keys and Flamingo Report 11/25/02
Capt. Eric Herstedt

       This week I had two hardcore fly fisherman from Seattle, Washington fish with me for five days.  The weather was cold and windy most of the time, but we ended up doing all right.  The first day we fished Flamingo winds 15 and steady light rain.  One of the guys caught his first small tarpon on fly and we lost two others.  A first tarpon on fly is a big deal weather it is small or big, so that day started off good.  Later that day we got into lots of tailing redfish, but we only caught two.

       The next day we bone fished in the Keys, winds N20-25 knots and 60 degrees.  Oh and don't forget fly-fishing.  This was challenging to say the least, but my anglers gave it a great effort.  We only had about seven shots, but they were all groups of large fish so it was exciting.  The wind was just to tough though, no hookups.

       We also fished two nights for tarpon in Miami which usually get s really good when the weather gets bad.  It is all sight fishing so its exciting.  There were not a ton of fish like I expected, but overall we were 0 for 6 on fly.  The last couple of days we fished the backcountry side of Flamingo.  The snook fishing was bad due to a full moon and cold weather.  We did manage to catch lots of jacks and sea trout on fly.
Overall my customers had a great time even though the fishing was not so good.

Tight  Lines and Screaming Drags,
Capt. Eric Herstedt

Florida Light Tackle Charters.com

Keys and Flamingo Report 11/03
Capt. Eric Herstedt

       This week was another great week like last week.  I ended up fishing four days and three out of the four were really good.  This week started off with lots of big tarpon but they gradually disappeared as a week cold front approached.  On Tuesday week hooked three big poons on fly, but lost them all rather quickly (the premature release syndrome).  Wednesday's anglers were not fly fisherman so we through plugs and live pinfish at the tarpon.  We hooked a total of 8 big poons and only caught 1.  That fish was 70lbs. caught on plug 15lb. line. 

       Thursday the weather started to go down hill and the big tarpon started to disappear.  In the morning though before all the fish left David Harris of Miami managed to hook a poon easily over 100lbs..  This fish ate a jig ten feet from the boat in a tiny little creek.  After a couple of close quarters jumps David lost the fish, but that's OK because his heart was already jumping out of his chest.  Later that day we caught 3 tailing reds and two bull sharks on topwater plugs, which was very exciting!

       Friday JJ Slack and Matt Cautchorn of Ft. Lauderdale fished with me in Flamingo and we had an unbelievable day.  It started with catching three small tarpon and losing a bunch of others on topwater plastic baits.  Seeing those tarpon feed on the surface is really exciting.  From there we fished tailing reds for three hours steady, we caught three and lost some others.  After that I decided we needed to try to complete the backcountry slam, so it was on to snook.  JJ and Matt each caught two snook of course, it seemed like we could do no wrong.  We also caught trout and jacks throughout the day.  So we ended up with a triple slam!  It was just one of those great Everglades days when all the fish were out in full force.

       In conclusion I would say, yes fishing is pretty darn good right know, I hope it keeps up.

Tight Lines and Screaming Drags,
Capt. Eric Herstedt    

http://www.floridalighttacklecharters.com

Florida Light Tackle Charters.com

Keys and Flamingo Report 10/27
Capt. Eric Herstedt

       What an awesome week beautiful weather and tons of fish.  On an average week, even if fishing is bad there is always some species to fish for that will be happening.  This was one of those weeks where everything was happening.  Following the cold front from last week we have had warm, calm weather.  I had a couple a live bait charters this week which I don't normally do much of.  In those couple of trips we caught tarpon up to 100lbs., multiple snook up to 32in., redfish, trout, snappers, grouper, and seven jewfish up to 20lbs..  That live bait fishing sure is productive.

       I also did two sight fishing charters this week and we saw basically everything, but overall the fish were pretty tough because it was so calm.  When you have no wind at all the fish on the flats can feel and hear you're casts coming.  Anyway out of Islamorada yesterday we had shots at tailing bones the first couple hours of the morning.  Some of the fish were so big they were tailing in a foot and a half of water.

Then we ran towards Flamingo, caught one of small tarpon on fly and lots a few others.  From there it was on to sightfishing redfish, we caught a few, but the highlight was that there were loads of 8-10 lb. snook on the redfish flats.  When those snook move in shallow though they are very spooky.  We hooked two but lost them both unfortunately.  After the snooks we checked out some shallow water big tarpon spots and of course they were there.  We had approx. 10-15 shots at big laid up tarpon over the last couple hours of the day.  We through the fly, but seemed to have some technical difficulties so it didn't work out.  Seeing those huge silver kings in a couple feet of water really gets you're heart going whether you hook them or not.

       It's been a heck of a week and if next week is half as good as this past week I'll be happy.  See ya next week!

Tight Lines and Screaming Drags,
Capt. Eric Herstedt    

Keys Fishing Report 10/20/02
Capt. Eric Herstedt

       This whole week I fished down in the lower keys, from Marathon to Sugarloaf.

Tuesday-Friday was all pre-fishing for a tournament, which was on Saturday and Sunday.  We of course had a cold front move through which really made fishing tough, but luckily the weather got a little better by the weekend.

       The tournament was the Miami Beach Rod and Reel Club Little Torch Key Slam Tournament.  This is a flats tournament for bonefish, permit, tarpon and mutton snapper.  On one of our days of practice we did catch a boat slam, which consisted of a 6lb bone, a 12lb permit and a 20lb tarpon.  As for the tournament we came in second place overall, but it took a lot of hard work.  There were not many fish caught overall due to high winds and cloudy weather, which makes for bad visibility. 

Stanley Hauseman was my angler and in the two days of tournament fishing he hooked bones, perms and tarps.  Unfortunately the one permit we hooked broke off, but we did end up with bonefish on 6lb test and small tarpon.  It was a lot fun and fishing hard in tough conditions really pays off.  There were plenty of times over the weekend when it seemed like nothing was going our way, but as long as you keep getting shots and making good casts eventually things will work out.
       This week it's back to Flamingo and Key Largo & Islamorada.  I am looking forward to being back in my home waters. That's its for this report, until next week good fishing.

Tight Lines and Screaming Drags,
Capt. Eric Herstedt

Florida Light Tackle Charters.com

Florida Keys Fishing Report 10/13/02
      
This week in the Keys fishing for bonefish was good.  We managed to get lots of shots at tailing fish in the morning and then fished them a little deeper later in the day.  The permit fishing is good right now and earlier in the week we had some good shots at perms off Key Largo. 
 

As for  fishing in the Everglades the fishing has changed quite a bit this week.  There has been some sort of algae bloom happening on some of the flats around Flamingo.  This has put a damper on fishing in that immediate area, but all of those fish have just moved east towards the Keys.  One charter over there this week we caught three small tarpon on fly, a couple of snook on zara spooks and had shots at redfish.  Also one really neat thing I found happening this week, was large trout muds loaded with hundreds of trout, jacks and ladyfish 2-3lbs.. We caught these fish on every kind of tackle you could imagine-it was a blast!
 

That's it for this week, next week I am fishing in Big Pine Key for bones, perms and tarps with a tournament there at the end of the week. 

Tight Lines and Screaming Drags,
 

Capt. Eric Herstedt 

http://www.floridalighttacklecharters.com

1-866-4-TARPON (482-7766)

Florida Light Tackle Charters.com

Florida Keys & Florida Bay 10/07/02

This week the fishing from Islamorada to Key Largo was good.  We had great visibility and moderate winds which both make for good Bonefish and Permit fishing.  Due to the mullet run there have also been some groups of Tarpon cruising down the oceanside. 

As for fishing in the backcountry in the Everglades, lots of tarpon big and small.  The Redfish fishing was OK this week, but not excellent.  Snook fishing was excellent, but there were lots of sharks in the area, willing to eat flies and bait.  Two of the sharks we caught this week were a seven foot (approx.200lbs.) lemon shark on fly and a huge nine foot (approx.300lbs) lemon shark on bait caught by "Big Ross" from Davie, Florida.      

Captain Eric Herstedt

http://www.floridalighttacklecharters.com

1-866-4-TARPON (482-7766)