Fishing report, Everglades days

This past week was all about variety. We fished with live bait, flies, lures and managed to catch a bit of everything from spanish mackeral to tarpon. The bookings started the moment Christmas passed and accounted for five days out of the last eight on the water. It's been relatively warm now for almost ten days and the giant tarpon began to show up as soon as the winds lay down. Right after Christmas the first two days were quite windy, blowing out of the east at 20 to as much as 25 each day. The first day we covered lots of ground with little to show for it until the afternoon when the gag grouper and small goliath grouper bite turned on. For a while there it was a fish every drop on light spinning gear using jigs tipped with shrimp. Some we landed, many simply tore up our gear leaving me doing lots of rigging when not un-hooking fish or setting up for another drop. Along with the grouper, were snapper and the occasional very nice sized mackeral. All were up inside rivers along shorelines protected from the winds. The next day it was more of the same, with a bit different outcome. We ran south of the Shark River along the west coast of the 'Glades looking for the reds and snook that we didn't find the day before. What we did run into were some very hungry and aggressive blacktip sharks. Although sharks in large numbers are a daily fact of life along the coast, the blacktips only show up in numbers during winter - usually on bad weather days. The first hint that they're around is a hard strike then a really long run (sometimes with jumps that a marlin would envy) that will spool a large spinning reel with 15 or 20lb line if you don't chase after them. The first one was a big critter at over 100lbs. Most sharks along the tannic stained gulf waters look a shade of gray, some darker or lighter than others but usually that gray for a lemon or bull shark from little ones on up to the 10 to 11 footers. Blacktips look a lot different, they're a coppery bronze and much more stream lined than the other animals we encounter. Finding them in less than five feet of water is always a treat. Young J. J. Jankowski had all he could do to beat the first one. We quickly set up again with another live bait since we could see them doing acrobatics leaping like they were trying to impress you. J. J.'s dad, John Jankowski was the next up and we got a real surprise. After a live bait was attacked within 100 feet of the shoreline the fish streaked off at twice the normal speed. At first we thought it was another blacktip, but it was actually a large king mackeral.... In the 35 years I've been running the 'Glades it was a first for me. I've caught many large kings in the ocean along the Atlantic coast but never one along the Everglades. John did a great job, and after a long fight we tailed that fish to bring back. It measured 48" long and I estimated it at between 30 and 40lbs - an outstanding catch from a small skiff inshore. -a very happy father and son. A few minutes later J. J. hooked up solidly to another blacktip, we estimated it at 70lbs when we released it. Quite a day! After a day off it was back on the water on Monday, fly fishing the interior of Whitewater Bay in much better light wind conditions. We found some big snook early on along several very shallow shorelines but missed our shots. We then moved around a bit before working an area that holds some nice redfish. Craig Spurdle caught and released two slot sized fish on an 8wt rod. The biggest measured almost 28". An hour later we found the first big pod of giant winter tarpon in Whitewater that I've found this year. We had shots at fish that ranged from 60 to as much as 125 and bigger but couldn't get a bite. These big fish will lay up in water that's 3 to 6 feet deep and only move occasionally. It makes it very tough to target an individual fish in the dark water. I made plans to pay them a visit the next day... On Tuesday we again found the redfish, this time with spinning gear. We'd already caught and released more than fifty speckled trout in another portion of the Bay. Austin and Genevieve Luce teamed upu with a couple of nice fish for a photo and release... The tarpon from the day before had re-located so it took us a while to find them. At the end of the day we jumped three, from well over 100lbs, to a 70, and finally to a 50lb fish that Josh Luce fought to the boat for a release at the end of the day. We had a few other adventures and one mis-adventure that I'll talk about another day, but it was a great week in the 'Glades. In the interim the winter shrimp have finally showed up so the night time tarpon fishing in Biscayne Bay should be going strong. Tight Lines Bob LeMay