The Student and the Pro
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008After making the run through Buttonwood Canal and into Whitewater Bay we stopped at the first spot hoping for an early Tarpon bite. It took only a few presentations before the Tarpon were airborne… we landed three before moving on. We stopped briefly at spots in and around Whitewater Bay before heading to the Northern Coastline, picking up a Redfish here and a Trout there. When we reached the coast we were greeted by diving pelicans & frigate birds… acres of pilchards & threadfins. We pushed further North… as I poled down shorelines we came face to face with several over slot Snook (one or two that could have easily gone 20+ lbs) and countless large Redfish.
We caught dozens with a few doubles mixed in…
After he had his fill of Reds on spin, Carlos decided to try his hand with the Fly rod. Although, he made several good casts and had at least a dozen opportunities with tailing fish, it was not meant to be… Something we will tackle forthright on our next trip.
Here’s a short video of our Whitewater Bay Adventure…
WWB Adventure
As a side note, Marcus of Powertech Props and I have been working on a new prop (“Proprod”) for the Maverick HPX-T that has produced fantastic numbers. We’re not done yet, but if you noticed in the video, I was running nearly 37 mph at 5200 RPMs! Stay tuned for more info soon.
The Pro
We left the Marina, heading South, with Snook on our minds. Did we ever find them… we caught at least a dozen fish at each spot, most were slot sized with a few larger fish mixed in. It was non-stop… the only time spent not fighting a fish was spent retying shredded leader. It is an absolute pleasure to fish with an accomplished Flamingo fisherman… on any other boat, he’d be the guide. Instead, we traded guiding duties on the platform and had a blast.
After we caught our fill, we eased up to one spot to capture this picture of a few more waiting their turn…
Next, we were off to the Cape for further exploration in the HPX-T… We spent the next few hours in very low water, sight-casting Snook & Reds in new areas. Every corner we turned and every shallow flat we poled yielded fish. It was unbelievable. We later made it back out into Florida Bay for some of the previous days’ Redfish action. Again, tails greeted us as soon as we arrived… in nearly every direction and for as far as we could see. I was able to capture an entire sequence of a typical Redfish catch. Here’s the Red chasing down the bait…
The Red comes clear out of the water to eat it…
The hook-set…
We caught SEVERAL dozen Redfish, easily over 30 Reds in total. We doubled up many times, but the true example of how great the fish were cooperating came at the very end of the day… in what was less than five minutes, we hooked and released eight fish. We had three fish on at the same time twice in that time period… we would have caught more if we only had more rigged rods available.
Until next week…