Fall Fishing is hot!

Nov 13 2008

Nope I'm not dead yet.....But it has been along time for an update.
Redfish!!!! Wow its been about as good as I've seen it in the last 5 years. Lots of fish of all sizes are playing nice. Find some clean water, that is in the lee and you will find reds. The water temps have dipped a few times , but remained warm. Which has kept the bait around a little longer.
It almost seems like the fish are thinking...." as long as this bait is around we had better fill up."
Needless to say my top fly has been a 3-3 1/2 " bait fish pattern. Light belly and a grey blue mixed back.
Yes the snook like it to, along with the larger trout. So we can fish 1 fly all day, cast to both reds and snook in the shallows.(oh did I forget to mention it's been ALL sight fishing).Then move to the deep grass to finish off our slam.
Some pompano are showing up around the passes on sandy drop offs and beach troughs.
But we haven't really gone looking for them yet. I have heard a few reports of cobia, along with the odd tarpon mixed in. With that said.... Lets go fishing I can't wait to get back out. Wednesday we hooked a snook in the 36" range..... Needless to say 25lb flourocarbon is not strong enough to hold big snook away from the mangroves. When the line parted the whole line piled up on the center console like a bunch of spaghetti. Oh well, sometimes the fish win..... But sometimes we win.


Tight lines
Capt. Jamie Allen
941-628-9031

Tarpon time

June 4th 2008


Sorry I am a little... all right a lot behind in my fishing reports.So this is for May and the start of June. Like last year May has been very windy, only a few days had calm winds where the tarpon swam high slow and calm.Tarpon numbers seemed to be down for this time of year. It just seems like everything is about 3 weeks behind.I was told by Sandy Melvin from Gasparilla outfitters the early morning and late night bait trips in Boca grande pass have been pretty consistent. We have plenty of fish around but windy and choppy water has made the sight fishing challenging. But even with the less than desirable conditions hard work and persistence has been paying off.I have had 3 first time tarpon fly guys hooked up, with Braun lowry landing his first boca grande poon that weighed an estimated 155lbs.(not bad for your first).The last 2 weeks have been our best yet. More fish,less wind and more hook ups.Our beach fish are moving pretty good in the afternoons giving us nice light and great shots.
Nothing to fancy on the fly side.Light colors on the beach tans,grays and yellows.Purple blacks and reds in the off color water.I use mostly EP bait fish patterns.
My new crab fly that has been a good producer is a large merkin style body with purple legs.(yummy)
I hope you can all come down and enjoy the tarpon fishing.It seems to be getting better each week. I expect we will be having great fishing all the way into September.

Thanks
Capt. Jamie Allen

March 25 2008

Its been taking the good with the bad. When the wind lays down and most important water temps get up to 70(or above) the fish get happy. So of course its been mostly windy with little breaks occasionally .Even with the winds our best fishing has remanded in Pine island sound.The weather pattern that oddly has produced the best bite, has been southern winds on incoming tides. This means plenty of water and fish mostly on northern or lee sides of islands and points. Red fish are still our best bite. The fish have been pretty aggressive taking both fly and artificial retrieved a little faster than normal.The fish are not every where but if you can find the big groups of needle fish you'll find the reds. I know needle fish don't sound like the normal food for reds. But the cooler water has kept the white bait out longer.I think the fish know its time to start looking for bait fish , but all they can find is needle fish. Colors are pretty basic , if its cloudy or murky water keep your patterns dark.Bright skies and clean water lighten up your color choice. Longer patterns seemed to be key. We watched lots of fish eat, most fish were moving 3-5 feet to aggressively take our presentations. Most of the fish were in 2-4 feet of water. But if you found deeper holes in the area, snook and large trout could be added to your daily catch.The snook we caught went up to 30" and the sea trout topped out at about 26". Some Tarpon are still popping up in deeper water . But only when the wind dies down. Aaron Adams from mote marine told me he jumped an 80 lb fish last weekend.
So hang in there folks it's only going to get better.
Tight lines
Capt. Jamie Allen

March 5 2008 Pine Island Sound

Finally, we made it into March.... I think old Mother Nature must really like January, because she keeps giving us little shots of cold wind almost every week. Now, the last few days, she tried to fool us and blow out of the south. North or south, either one makes for tough sight fishing. Even with inconsistent weather, a lot of fish seem to be moving out of the back water anticipating the warmer water temps.
The beach fishing has been a little hit and miss with some macs and albies popping up. Some wishful thinking snook have all ready shown up around the passes and on the beaches. Must be the smaller males... Those young bucks always seem to have one thing on they're mind....Oh yeah, they do eat, too.
Trout are old faithful and just keep on chewing. We have caught them in shallow grass, deep grass, potholes even a few way back in some deep, back country holes. Regardless, find some clean water with good turtle grass , lets say 3-6 feet of water where the wind hasn't blown it to a froth. Start casting your favorite trout lure, fly or bait and have fun. These fish are so active right now they will eat almost anything.
A good friend and fisherman John Rappold called me this morning . He said he caught a 23" trout working a jig over grass before it made it to his dinner table, he found a 7" mangrove branch or root in it's belly.
Red fish ..... well lets just say WOW! They are coming out of the ..... Well, I don't know where all of them are coming from but we are catching some nice fish. When water temps get into the low 70's and the winds not blowing. Boing up come the tails and on goes the feed bags.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of fishing with one of my fellow Vermonters Bill Berry. Now if you remember March 4th it blew like crazy all morning and a good part of the day. I ran from Boca Grande to Pineland Marina to pick Bill up. NOT fun... I wasn't sure I was going to have any usable rods by the time I got down there. My oil cap and plug both came off and popped out. What a mess!
Bill looked a little worried but hopped in and asked, "Which side should I sit on so I won't get soaked?"
Well everything started slow. Bill prefers to fish all artificial whenever possible. With the wind and clouds, sight fishing was almost impossible but we stuck to are game plane. We started with a surface plug, some swirls but no takers. So I had Bill change to a jig head with a 5" root beer and gold flake jerk bait..... 2nd cast ....boom a 10lb redfish crushed it. We made a few more moves and Bill kept on catching. Most of the fish were not along the flooding shore lines , but off 20 to 100 feet. The were laying in 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 feet of water. We couldn't see them, so we cast to any sign of surface activity. At the end of a windy drizzly day, we had landed around 25 redfish, hooked some snook and caught a hand full of large trout. Not bad for a crappy weather fishing day. Then it was drop Bill off, put on all my rain gear and prepare to lose some fillings on the nasty ride back to Boca. It really wasn't that bad, but I'm glad I had put on my rain gear.
It should just keep on getting warmer and the fish should start to feed more often. I hope you can all get out soon.Enjoy the beautiful water we live near and catch some of these great fish.
One last note snook season is open. That means you can keep one per person.....but you DON'T have to. I keep fish sometimes but release most everything. I like to tell my fishermen to keep only what the will eat tonight, then it's fresh and nothing goes to waste.

Thanks,
Capt. Jamie Allen
941-628-9031

P.S
If you can try to take a kid fishing (big or small)

Feb 25 2008

When it comes to picking great days for fishing Jack and John sure can pick' um.
We started out sight fishing to red fish. Although we had perfect flat conditions... The reds did not tail. (I'm sure the red fish tourney held 2 days earlier had nothing to do with it). The reds were around, but they held tight staying warm in the shallows. We had no wind, but we did have lots of low haze putting a nasty glare on the water....By the time we could see the reds, they were all ready on the move.
Time for plan B. We made a quick move to a deep hole with the incoming tide sweeping bait off the shallow edge. That's what the boys wanted. I don't know for sure how many trout they caught. I do know it was fast and furious for about 45 minutes. In fact Jack actually said" hey something is wrong. I just made a cast and didn't hook a fish." Then, another boat drove right through our spot.
With the boat, combined with the tide starting to end, the bite, also, ended.
We then went to sight fish cruising reds on the outside bars. Again, we had the fish, could see the fish, but could not get them to bite. We did catch 2 more big trout which the boys decided to keep.
After checking 2 more spots we found the snook. Big snook... The first pair sitting perfect on a small bar off a point in turtle bay, problem was they saw us. We poled down that shore line site fishing to snook ( Some over the 20lb mark). We didn't fool 'um....I guess the old saying "You don't get old by being dumb" must be true. But, we did catch reds. We finished of the day with more trout and the occasional crazy jumping ladyfish. On the last stop, John finished his inshore slam with a nice 25" snook.
We fished nothing but artificials all day on light spinning tackle. Mostly 1/8 ounce jig heads with soft plastics. Gulp shrimp, exude grub tails and bass assassin blurps paddle tail style.

I hope everyone gets a chance to get out soon and enjoy the warming water conditions and the active fish.

Cold weather tomorrow, so today could be really good.

Thanks
Capt. Jamie Allen

SWFL Fishing Report

It's February and the weather is gorgeous. I don't know about the rest of the anglers in our area but January for me always seems to be the toughest fishing month of the year. Now I know a lot of you caught fish last month. To be honest We did have 1 great day last month (note I said one). We had an afternoon about a week after the big water temp drop where we caught 19 Reds on the fly, but all the north winds super low tides along with crazy inconsistent water temps usually make for tough fishing. Enough about the weather, lets talk fishing.


If you've been lucky enough to get on the water recently. You surely noticed the warmer water temps and the increase in hungry fish. Lets start with our most reliable fish. Sea trout, I know lots of you have had luck with blues, mackerel or a variety of other species. I call those the grab bag fish. Back to trout, you can always check out your favorite trout holes.

If the fish aren't playing nice. Try slow drifting over a healthy turtle grass bottom in 4-6 feet of water. Keep blind casting around the edges of depth changes or pot holes. When the strikes start to increase drop anchor and work the area until the bites slow down. Pull anchor and repeat . Don't spend to much time in an area that is only producing a few fish. Trout are least affected by lower water temps, and will almost always eat if you make your presentation at the right depth and speed. The nice thing about trout right now, is they are plentiful and larger trout(20" plus) are making a good showing.

Redfish are starting to show up in small to medium size schools. Fish in water 3-6 feet seem to be the ones that bite the best. A decent number of reds are moving onto the flats. Although they seem to be more interested in warming up rather than feeding. But if you can find them in the shallows and make a long stealthy cast to the business end of resting or slow moving fish. Hang on...Just make sure to keep it slow and give them plenty of time to decide your offering looks tasty.

Snook for the most part have been a little like hens teeth. Now don't get me wrong, I know there are some snook way back in the creeks (mostly small fish). Night fishing is still productive around the lights and docks. On my outings we have had luck with mostly small snook around deeper cuts or where flats drop off into channels.

Last week Aaron Adams from Mote Marine gave another great talk at Charlotte Harbor Fly Fishers fly fishing club. He stated that the fish have been very scattered. Fish were in some back creeks (not as much as past years) but also being caught near barrier island passes. So on my next outing, I thought I would try something a little different. I started poling water that I would normally check in late March or April. WOW!! what a great surprise. For the next few day's we sight fished to 100 plus snook in shallow sandy bottom areas, plus the fish ate flies. As an added bonus, there was quite a few Reds mixed in. So go fish the back creeks if you want but I'm going to stick to those shorelines closer to passes.

The flies we have had success with are crab/shrimp style patterns in brown,green and rusty orange combinations. Also bait fish patterns that mimic pinfish,killifish,gobies or mud minnows. All these patterns work best when fished on or near the bottom. Allow the flies to sink then use short 4-6 inch strips with pauses every few strips.
Artificials that I like this time of year tend to lean towards jig heads(1/8 to 1/4 oz) With soft plastic grub or shrimp style baits (both Gulp and Bass Assassins new blurp have been great producers). My favorite colors are root beer with gold flakes, copper, green and brown. If they don't produce I'll go the other direction and use all white, chartreuse over white or glow white.

Smaller surface plugs or suspending plugs can be good under lower light conditions or where fish are active in warmer water. Just remember what ever you tie on the end of your line. its still spring, morning water temps will be cool and warm as the sun hits climbs the southern sky. With that in mind fish slow, slow and slower.

Enjoy every day on the water. If you can, take a kid fishing.

Thanks
Captain Jamie Allen
941-628-9031

Check out Aaron Adams new book:
Fly Fisherman's Guide to Saltwater Prey: How to Match Coastal Prey Fish and Invertebrates With the Fly Patterns That Imitate Them by Aaron J. Adams (Paperback - Jan 10, 2008)

This link will take you to Amazon or you can probably find it (or ask for it) at your local fly fishing store!