I'm back in my old stomping grounds of SW Florida for 3 weeks of work doing prescribed burning and off course I brought a rod with me ;D This will be an ongoing report of my nightly fishing adventures....
Well I've been back for less than 24 hours and already caught a couple snook. It's nice to know that my old spots are still producing fish!
Stand by for more reports....
Glad your old spots produce some fine eating snook. Enjoy.
Dwight
Very nice! I love the fishing in Florida. Looking forward to more of your reports to live vicariously through!
Mike
Nice. Makes me long for the years I lived in west central FL and fishing all night til the sun came up. I had a particular passion for snook!
I don't fish inshore very much now but when I did, linesiders were my favorite catch. Way to go.
Hey PJ are there any tarpon in those waters? Dominick
Quote from: Dominick on February 27, 2019, 11:59:27 PM
Hey PJ are there any tarpon in those waters? Dominick
Yup there sure are! I just need to find where they are hiding..... They're number one on my hit list!
Looks like you're going to have a great time,.........mimmm working!
Beautiful surroundings.
Quote from: pjstevko on February 28, 2019, 12:53:35 PM
Quote from: Dominick on February 27, 2019, 11:59:27 PM
Hey PJ are there any tarpon in those waters? Dominick
Yup there sure are! I just need to find where they are hiding..... They're number one on my hit list!
You have to live line them. Dominick
Very nice snook,,,,there on my bucket list,,,,, ;D
I've been fishing every evening and catching a few small son here or there but nothing worth posting...... Except for tonight...
Here a nice snook that hit a weedless white jerkbait right at dusk!
Hope you are enjoying the balmy weather. This is like the third week straight with highs in the 80's. Looking forward to a real cold front.
I managed to catch a small jack today, for their size they are great fighters! I also found a spot today that is holding micro tarpon but need to downsize my lures so once I get what I need I'll head back and tangle with 4-8 inch tarpon!
Nice! Get a bunch of them baby tarpon mounted and make a set of refrigerator magnets!
Today's fishing adventure was all about catching micro versions of what would eventually become behemoth sized adult fish! The first catch of a day was a baby goliath grouper who fell victim to my DOA terroreyez! The next stop was the baby tarpon spot I checked out yesterday. Today I showed up armed with super small flies, which were a challenge to throw with my spinning rod, and it seemed to do the trick. I landed about 6 micro tarpon in an hours time!
The adult versions of both species I caught today can grow to several hundred pounds each so it's always fun to catch them when they are a little more manageable ;D
Glad you're having fun, PJ! I love fishing the estuaries, you never know what's going to bite!
Ah, youth. Control burning in the daytime, having enough energy for fishing in the evenings.
Them Florida estuaries look from the variety/size you're catchin, to be a great nursery area. Nice pictures.
That is so cool! Looks like you're having a blast PJ. Getting any work done? ;)
Quote from: Fishy247 on March 05, 2019, 06:59:31 PM
That is so cool! Looks like you're having a blast PJ. Getting any work done? ;)
Funny you should ask that question.....
There hasn't been any fishing for the last few days since I'm up in Sebring helping out Lake Wales National Wildlife Refuge do some prescribed burning. Because the local terrain is difficult to get around on we have very specialized equipment we use to pull off a burn like this. The best all around piece of equipment for this environment is a swamp buggy which is basically a monster truck with a 200 gallon water tank and a pump on it! The next best piece of equipment is a marsh master which is a cross between a pontoon boat and a tracked fire engine.
The swamp buggies are all custom made by a family right here in Sebring and can travel through water over 3-4 ft deep as well as crawl over brush 5-6 ft tall!
The marsh master can float on water as well as crawl over brush on dry land. It contains a water pump build directly into the frame of the machine and can pump water from the lake is floating on!
I'll get back to fishing once we're done burning up here but for now this will become a prescribed burn report!
Really cool pictures. I need one of those swamp buggies for Tampa traffic.
COOL!
Wow, fire equipment just keeps getting better and more specialized. In the olden days we had flatbed 4x4's rated for a ton or more with slip-on tank/pump units.
Yeah, those are some pretty cool toys to play with if you can't go fishing.... ;D
Here's a few pics from the burn today. We finished up the unit from yesterday and burned another 150 acre unit today. The weather today really made for great fire effects.....
Cool pics. Next time put on a clean jacket. :D ;D Dominick
Well, that and stay safe! ;D
The night we got back in town from the burn the local bridge fishing was on fire! I landed 4 soon over 25" and jumped 2 nice sized tarpon!
Nice. It looks like the Terroreyz still work pretty good. I wonder if they would work for Calicos on the West coast. Enjoy.
Scott
Quote from: conchydong on March 09, 2019, 11:44:42 PM
Nice. It looks like the Terroreyz still work pretty good. I wonder if they would work for Calicos on the West coast. Enjoy.
Scott
The 3/8th TerrorEyz is my all time favorite snook and tarpon lure for fishing a strong outgoing tide at the local SW Florida bridges!
I'm sure calico would crush a TerrorEyz if you could get it deep enough
I got to spend a quick weekend in the keys with my aunt and uncle and although I didn't get to do a lot of fishing I did manage to catch this small barracuda!
My time in South Florida is coming to an end soon but I'm hoping to get a few more evenings off fishing in before I head back west. I'm still hoping to land a tarpon bigger than those micro ones I caught a few weeks ago
I finally landed a good sized tarpon last night! I stopped by a local bridge at around 10pm after having dinner with some friends and it was alive with action. It was a strong outgoing tide and I could hear and see tarpon rolling and attacking bait so I knew I'd have a good shot of hooking up. After several missed strikes I finally got one to stick and landed my first good sized tarpon of the trip.... Here's the fish of the trip so far..... Estimated 25-30#!!!
Nice one, get him on the terroreyz? Miss the snook and tarpon action, keep up w the pics!
Drew
Quote from: biggiesmalls on March 12, 2019, 12:37:14 PM
Nice one, get him on the terroreyz? Miss the snook and tarpon action, keep up w the pics!
Drew
Not this time.... DOA Baitbuster!
Nice!
Bravo! Still have the touch.
-steve
Cooool! Tarpon. A definite bucket-lister for me.
So my friend Connor took me out on his Gheeno last night to fish dock lights for laid up snook. We grabbed a bite to eat after work then launched right at dark and headed towards Marco Island. It took us a little bit but we finally found some fish that were hungry. The first fish to hit the cooler was a nice 13-14 inch mangrove snapper that crushed Connor's fluke and not 2 minutes later my DOA baitbuster got hammered and line starts peeling off the reel. Once I got the fish out of the pilings and pulled the fish into the boat we were shocked to see a 16-17" mangrove! A few docks later we got into our target species and landed a few small snook. After releasing a snook Connor looked at the deck of the boat and a 6" long shrimp had jumped into the boat during the mayhem of catching all the snook. He threw the shrimp in the cooler to use for bait later..... The local watering hole The Snook Inn had a 100 ft of dock and it's all lit up with dock lights and is a popular place to target snook under the lights. When we finally arrived there we were shocked to see no one else was fishing the lights. It was game on for a couple small snook and snapper but we couldn't get the big girls to eat....that is until Connor grabbed that big shrimp and tossed towards a big fish hanging just under the dock..... A few people were on the dock watching us by this point and when the big snook made a move towards his bait everyone started hooting and yelling..... We watched the fish inhale the shrimp and it was battle royale time! Connor worked her through several pilings and out into open water all to the cheers of the tourists on the dock. Once in open water he wore her down and got it boatside were I lipped the fish and got her in the boat. A quick check of the tape measure should 28.5" and into the cooler she went! After this we land a few other small snook and called it a night. It was a great way to end my fishing adventure in SW Florida!
Now it's time to start thinking about west coast rockfish and lingcod!
Nice snook and in a kayak,,,,,,,, ;D