July 2008

Time to catch The fishing is good right now! The Tarpon, Permit, Bonefish, Barracudas and Sharks are plentiful on the ocean side flats from Key Biscayne to Key West from what I have seen and reports from other guides. Low water with low light in the morning has been key for me with Bonefish and Tarpon, once the tide starts to come in I am already in position to target them coming across my bow. On a recent trip we had tailing Bonefish, tailing Permit and rolling tarpon thru out the tide. This is very exciting and the reason we do what we do! Flamingo is in going off with Snook right now, on a recent trip we had 20 or so fishing the Gulf beaches and I had a report of someone catching 70 Snook in the course of his day. The baby Tarpon are around, they seem to have moved in a little later then normal this year but they will be around until November. The Gulf of Mexico is holding Cobias and Permit on structure whether its a marker or wreck. The Sharks are out of control this time of year, from 5 lbs to 300 lbs. There are Bulls, Lemons, Hammerheads, Blacktips, and Spinners which put on an aerial which is awesome. The Redfish which be schooled and scattered some days but in plenty of supply. 070508 I am with Michael and his daughter Felicia today at Flamingo, we are going to fish some and take some photos. They both are photographers but wanted to try catching a few fish as well. The morning started slow we had some nice Tarpon rolling and they stayed just out our reach. We had one roll on a Twitch n Rap but turned off. The tide wasn't moving hard enough for the Snook to turn on but the spot was loaded with 3 types of bait and I was waiting. We moved around and found some really nice Trout up to 23 inches, they caught 20 or so and then we moved on for some picture taking. I took them to an area where there are usually tons of Spoonbills and white pelicans, but not today Felicia had to settle for a for a 26 inch Snook. We caught some more fish and then Michael hooked a monster Jack Crevalle, that was ripping line of the reel. Its hard to believe a fish that hit that hard and ran that far came loose, but that's the way it goes. It was time to head in and we called it a day. 070808 Sam Rose called me and asked what was happening? I told him the Tarpon where still in the Cut which he actually lives on inside of Fischer Island. The winds were up @ 18 mph and the tide was ripping out of the cut causing the mouth to get rough. We set up on our first drift and made a pass to figure our drift direction. On our second drift Sam hooked up to a high flyer, the second jump was easily 10 feet in the air which was awesome. The fish fought extremely hard and took Sam just over an hour to land, we landed the 70 lb Tarpon got some photos (Sam's biggest). Sam is in his 70's and was soaking wet from sweat he said take me home I'm done. Sam had a good year with me the last time we fished he caught a Permit that was close to 50 lbs. I took advantage of being out there and alone, no boat traffic whatsoever. I pulled up to the jetty and cast a Gulp 4 inch Shrimp, it didn't take long and I was hooked up to a keeper sized Snook. I repeated this for an hour and also caught a nice Grouper. I finally decided to call it a night. July 17- 19 This week I pre-fished the west coast from Charlotte Harbor to Clearwater looking for Redfish for the Redfish Tour event in Sarasota on Saturday. I check all the spots I have caught fish at over the years and enjoyed a couple days with the fishing rod in my hands. We caught plenty of fish over the 4 days and thought we might have an opportunity to shine, the trip went well although we finished 34th out of 88. Tournament day was interesting with a unbelievable Snook bite at first light, it was really hard to move on from them but we needed Redfish. 072408 I fished with buddies Paul and Dave at Flamingo today and we had an incredible day! I netted about thirty - 6 inch mullet and put them to use, I normally fish lures but couldn't pass up an opportunity like we had. The Mullet got hit hard and often, the first one was eaten by a 100 lb Lemon Shark to get us started after a couple pictures we let it go. The next 2 hours were just filled with Snook and Tarpon bites, We had about 12 Snook over 30 inches with the biggest one right at 15 lbs. The Tarpon were all in the 30 to 40 lb range and seemed to come free at some point in the fight. They also caught Jacks,Trout, Ladyfish and a few more Sharks, Paul and Dave told me they wanted something that pulled hard and they got it. It was a memorable trip! 072608 Today I fished the Friendly Flamingo Tournament with my my buddy Paul, this tournament is made up of teams that fish Everglades National Park religiously. The teams are all serious and put a lot of time into this, just for bragging rights. The first thing in the morning we picked up a item which has to be in the photo of a caught fish, it was a banana! I am very superstitious about bananas on my boat, things happen that don't normally happen. I am not the only one who feels this way and guys did all sorts of things to reverse the spell of the banana from going back ward and reversing there path to peeing on the banana to kill the curse. Our first stop was for Tarpon they were not as thick as I I had hoped. We fished the area and caught small Snook after Snook and hooked 7 Tarpon only to have them jump off, even when they were hooked solid. there were other s that struck the lures but hit it short. I believe this was due to the banana, normally I catch a lot of these small fish. We had to go to our Snook spot before it got to late, Paul had a monster fish hit his Rapala Skitterwalk but completely miss it, the banana effect again. He had an idea to get rid of the jinx and I really think it worked,one of the above mentioned methods. On our next spot we caught 7 Snook between 32 and 34 inches, jinx at least mentally gone. There were a couple very large ones in there that came up with the hooked Snook hitting it like it was trying to eat it, possible it's a mating partner. We moved on hitting all our spots looking for a Redfish and hopeful a by-catch of a Trout, the Snook just wore us out but no Redfish. We caught Jacks, Ladyfish and big Mangrove Snappers in all the spots we hoped there would be Redfish. We ran to Ponce De Leon Bay to a Tarpon hole but they were not there, we ended up south of Shark River where Paul caught a 22 inch Redfish. We were out of time and had to get back with a couple stops on the way hopefully for a Trout, Trout usually are caught while fishing for other species but not on this day. We made our way back to the ramp and then to Gustos in Homestead to turn in our points. We did not have many points only 56 inches but we caught 45 Snook and all the other action just made for an incredible day. This was done using lures, we cast Rapalas, Gulps, and a the new Hollow belly Power bait by Berkley. The winners had a great day with 117 inches and we left with the 2nd largest Snook award. With all the great fishing the guys experienced all anyone was talking about was the bananas! There are plenty of options for the serious angler or just for some fun fishing with the kids or buddies. Call me at 305 333 8149 if you onwould like an enjoyable day of fish catching. Let's go Catch'em Captain Jim Hobales www.Caughtlookincharters.com Select another page || Go to Home Page

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