All of the action right now continues to be around river mouths along the Gulf coast west of Flamingo. Although there's still lots of tiny pilchards along gulf-side shorelines the action has been a bit erratic due to a combination of heavy rains and west winds. One day it's fish every cast while the tide is moving and the next day the same areas are pretty well turned off. At one corner we caught and released small gag grouper and jewfish (goliath grouper) on every drop with bucktails. The next day not even one bite at the same spot... Action with small tarpon was our best bet this past week. We jumped four and released two at the boat in just a few hours at one spot. The fish are in the 20 to almost 50lb size range and are quite hungry. We've had good shots at them on bait and lures every day. Fly rodders should find action with noisy popping bugs since the fish are paying a lot of attention to anything that makes a disturbance at the surface. Watching a small tarpon repeatedly attack and try to eat a live bait that's a bit too big is quite a show! With the advent of winds from the southeast this coming weekend should be good for snook and other critters that hang around downed trees along the coast, particularly on a rising tide. Tight lines
troycreasy