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Capt Bob LeMay

Fishing report, Biscayne nights - Everglades days

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As usual my reports are rarely pure fly fishing so you'll just have to disregard the other stuff.... enjoy! The night scene usually has us using 8 or 9wt rods with floating lines. I prefer to use older lines for this sort of stuff since concrete and wood pilings are really hard on fly lines....

 

 

All summer long I've been dividing my time between day and night trips with fair success. This past weekend it was Saturday night in Biscayne Bay with Joe and Tony Pevec using fly fishing gear. Tony, visiting from Tampa, hooked up first with a nice small tarpon in the 20lb range on a small white fly (our usual Night Fly on a 2/0 hook). Here's a pic or two of that encounter....
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Every tarpon we bring to the boat is carefully revived by holding it submerged for a moment or two as we idle along.... When the fish is revived you just can't hang on to them - they free themselves....
That night both brothers hooked up on other tarpon -both in bridge shadows and in nearby docklights, but the fish did all the releasing.... We ended that night working docklights where we found some nice snook that were very skeptical of our flies. They'd follow them back to the boat then turn away at the last moment. It was particularly frustrating since a few spots held big snook (way over the slot limit, right at the surface chasing tiny bait....). We finally hooked a small one that was able to pull the hook all too quickly.
All that's needed for a decent night trip is a falling tide any your choice of tackle. The night scene is one of the few outings I know of where fly gear will usually outfish lures....
Daytimes are for the Everglades either out of Flamingo or Everglades City. Our most recent trip there was over on the Flamingo side for two days and the fish were biting.... I had Steve Benson, his 13 year old son Kobe, and Kobe's friend Luke aboard. These two young men are already accomplished anglers, ready to go heads up with anything we found for them.... Those two days we caught and released trout, redfish, snook, snapper, two kinds of grouper, sharks, a small barracuda (also broke off a nice tarpon)- and oh yeah... a ten foot long sawfish that almost got me.... That first day my camera was without battery so I don't have any pics. It was Kobe who got the big saw, and fought it to the boat in very shallow, muddy water (we'd been looking for redfish....). I didn't even see what we had until it was right at the boat. Normally, releasing a big saw at the boat isn't a problem since we're in a bit deeper water and they're not hard to handle once they settle down. On this day the fish was very green and in such shallow water that it was able to use its tail to almost jump up into the boat with us. It all happened so quickly that I wasn't able to even react. It almost got me across the face with its bill (and I was standing two feet inboard of the rubrail....). That was entirely too close for comfort and I'll be a bit more cautious the next time we encounter one in shallow water.... I'd have needed a trip to the ER if struck and a lot more than a few band-aids... That day we hooked and lost quite a few sharks along with one over slot snook that came up to shake the hook while we were already fighting another fish (that's my recipe with kids aboard -keep them busy....). Luke had the big redfish that day -it measured right at 26 1/2" long, a perfect tournament fish if you do that sort of stuff....
The next day it was more of the same... here's a pic or two with both Kobe and Luke taking turns with nice fish.....
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this nice goliath, nearly 30lbs, was caught with relatively light 15lb line - then carefully released after a quick photo....
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This nice slot sized snook was our biggest of the trip - another one carefully released (but look out come September first...).
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Here's Luke with another grouper -this one a small gag grouper on just 10lb line and the Gulp tailed jig you can see....
Both day and night, this time of year the fish are biting... so....
Be a Hero -take a kid fishing!

 

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Every tarpon we bring to the boat is carefully revived by holding it submerged for a moment or two as we idle along.... When the fish is revived you just can't hang on to them - they free themselves....

 

Awesome!!

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Awesome report, but should you be posting a pic with a jewfish in the boat? I thought even landing them was illegal. What are the specific rules on that?

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The jewfish (goliath grouper for all you politically correct types...) is still protected both by the state of Florida and the feds so they're a no take item. I've stood up in front of the FWC (for those not from Florida -it's our fisheries and wildlife regulatory outfit) and advocated that they re-consider those protections since in many areas we're up to our fannies in them - in every size from tiddlers to the size that will eat a 15lb permit like it was a snack.... We've been told that state studies are underway to consider that proposition but the feds probably wouldn't give us the time of day... That said there was big flap a few years back about folks operating from boats over wrecks dragging big, big fish (from 200lbs on up to over 400lbs) into the boat for the cameras on TV shows. There was no doubt those fish were being abused, badly -and it had to stop so the enforcement arm of the FWC made a few public pronouncements about prosecuting them and it all went away. I consider them to be a strictly catch and release item and handle them the way we do any fish that must be carefully handled then released in good shape (that includes every tarpon, every snook, during closed season, or not in the slot during open season, every shark, every sawfish, etc.). I see nothing wrong with taking a quick photo during that process.... and the only fish that come into my boat are ones that can be lifted with one hand (that means that we never take a big tarpon out of the water - no matter how badly an angler wants to pose with one....).

 

By the way for those un-familiar with the name "jewfish" -it was never a slur just a corruption over a hundred years or more of the original "jawfish". Of course folks who've never even seen one have taken it differently.... The outfit that re-named the fish a few years back were probably in that camp. They're one of my favorites since they're tough as an old boot, aggressive, and we can catch them on bait, lures, and flies (biggest on fly was around 15lbs in less than 2 feet of water....). Many an angler that lost a really big snook around structure was probably hooked up to a small jewfish (babies are anything under fifty pounds in my book....). The biggest we've ever gotten to my skiff was around 125lbs and it was not taken from the water.... We hook bigger ones regularly but they're just un-stoppable with the gear we use (heaviest line on my skiff is only 20lb...).

 

As you can tell from the above -they've got a special place in my affections. What I suggested in open forum at one of the regular FWC meetings was that a simple slot limit with only one fish allowed per boat (say between 10 and 30lbs) but only if their biologists signed off on it. I never want to see any commercial take for them ever again since that's what almost caused their demise the last time (jewfish are just too aggressive for their own good and divers with power heads can clean them out anywhere they're found). When that was happening years ago commercials (and everyone else with or without a license) were only getting fifty cents a pound for them.....

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I agree that a limited take on them is necessary as they are over protected to the point of being damaging since they eat everything in sight and there have been reports of them cleaning out shallow reefs. Like they finally did with gators, which became over abundant and still certainly seem nowhere near endangered, at least as it seems when cruising around the everglades. I wasn't being critical of your methods, just curious of how the laws are enforced since I know they say not to remove them from the water. I think it is rather silly for that rule to be enforced on a 10b fish. I once caught one that was so small it still had egg shell on it (probably weighed a 1/2 lb) so needless to the say the law was bent then to unhook it. I do remember reading a rather funny story about a guy in Tampa that dragged a big one up on the deck of his skiff to unhook it someone from the bridge he was by called the FWC because they thought he pulled a manatee up on to his boat.

 

I always heard the jewfish for jawfish account as well, but once heard one that said something like the meat on a jewfish was so white and flaky some people said it ,just be kosher so they named it the jewfish. It is most likely an apocryphal story to explain the name but a rather amusing one. If I'm not mistaken though, the name jewfish goes back to the 19th C so the corruption has been around a while.

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The one thing I forgot to mention is that there was never any change to the rule regarding goliaths at all. The only thing that occurred was a public pronouncement by an FWC executive level type noting that the fish was protected and that any removal from the water would constitute a "taking" as far as enforcement went. As you can guess it had the desired effect (although recently I saw a tease for a video from one of those same fellows that were making a living off of charters targetting the giants again....). On this occasion, instead of pulling the fish up onto the boat they pulled the giant fish onto two paddle boards (that were themselves secured to the back of a boat....) along with the "hero" who was actually in the water with the fish.... In my book they're still abusing those big fish and inviting some kind of action - but that's just my opinion.... I can't tell others what to do but for myself I'm perfectly comfortable with the way we handle the small ones we encounter. We have caught and released them from 6'" long up to around 30-40lbs and they were in fine condition when released.

 

By the way back when they were legal to keep, many a club fish fry included them on the menu and the small ones were pretty good table fare. The bigger ones are better suited for chowder (and are probably still being poached for that purpose if any illegal fishing is occurring).

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Thanks for the info. That's cool to know that they never actually passed a law saying lifting out of the water was illegal. Removing a fish briefly for de-hooking and a quick photo or measurement is not hurting the fish in any way, and in fact can sometimes mean easier and faster de-hooking for smaller fish. I'm glad the pronouncement worked as it did. I almost wish they would do something similar for big reds and snook. I can't tell you how many times I have seen a bull red or huge snook slammed on the deck of a pier, the held up vertically by the lips or gills while his buddy fiddles with the camera before just chucking the fish over instead of lowering it in a bridge net.

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