The weather for last 2 months has been spectacular! We have been lucky with low winds and plenty of fish. This past week the winds turned out of SW to West and made us work for our fish. The backcountry Species are Tarpon, Snook Redfish and Trout. Anytime we are fishing the backcountry and can catch 3 of the 4 for a Slam is great, we did It 4 times out of 4 this past week. The overall numbers were low but the catches were very good.
Jack and Kevin came down from Vero Beach and met me at my house in Key Largo. Jack is like my little brother; we have been family for 55 years. We ran across to Flamingo which they had never done. We had some Snook Trout and Kevin fought a 130 lb. Tarpon for 45 minutes. Tarpon Jumped a few times and then stayed down until we got a leader release on it. We had a great day and showed them a different side of the Keys.
I am fishing with Jimmy and his son Walker today at Flamingo. We Had a nice Slam today with a 22-inch Trout, 32-inch snook and a 23-inch Redfish. We also had some other Snook and big Sharks. This was a great half day trip, exactly what Jimmy wanted for Walker. Walker left with a giant smile on his face.
Today I am with my long-time clients Ross and Mindy. On our first cast Mindy got the biggest Snook of the day. Today was the first day we started to feel the pressure of our first cold front of the season. We caught some fish today, but we worked hard for them. We caught Snook, Trout, Sharks, Tripletail, and a giant flat where the Jacks were beating the Snook to the lure. We caught about 20 Jacks all around 5 lbs. while watching the Snook swim around the edge of the flat. It was a great day with great people, hope the coach Ross has a good season. No fishing for the next 4-5 months!
I fished the Day on the Bay FNGLA Tournament with my son James and friend Mike. I have been fishing this tournament since before my guiding days. We knew today was going to be tough because of conditions. We started out with a small Tarpon to get on the board and a small Snook shortly after. The wind was easily @ 25 mph out of the West which really hurts the fishing. The one fish I knew I could catch was a monster Shark, and even that was tough. We stuck it out for a couple hours using dead cut baits, Ladyfish, Jacks and Mullet.
We went thru a bunch of fish Including 120 lb. Tarpon, threw the hook. We also caught a 24-5 “Redfish. We hooked a handful of Sharks to 6ft. but I was looking for a 10 ft. monster. We caught a 5 lb. Jack which eventually got us a 9 ft. Lemon. We spent the last hour looking for a Trout but only found Giant Tarpon blowing up on Mullet in a foot of water.
Tough Day but walked away with biggest Shark! Always a fun Tournament for a great caught
I have some open days we will have a lot going on as soon as front passes tonight, as of this writing ( 10-16-23) I got a call on how good mullet run is today.
If you are interested give me a call at 305 333 8149>
Capt .Jim Hobales .
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