[Viking1]

Last week I spent 5 days fishing and camping in the Everglades and 10K Islands. After seeing the weather reports for Texas and pretty much the rest of the country I felt blessed to be in Florida with days of 70 to 80 degree weather. The wind was really blowing during the time that I was fishing but this kept the bugs away. This is the first trip to this area in 50 years that I have not had to use bug spray and that includes the bad times around dawn and dusk. Fishing was excellent. The key was to find the cleanest water you could find (relative term given the amount of wind). Water temps varied very little from 78 to 80 degrees. Snook, trout, mangrove snapper, goliath groupers, jacks and lady fish where all active on the front side. Surprisingly this trip I did not catch one redfish where last trip every other fish was a red fish. In the backcountry snook and juvenile tarpon were active. Tarpon where rolling in dirty water but did not eat. Tarpon in clear/tannic water ate readily. Instead of blowing through areas I would motor very slowly looking for rolling fish. I used only artificial bait and the best producer was a 3" white plastic paddle tail on a 1/4 oz chartreuse jig. If you wanted to catch tarpon you used a steady retrieve like a swimming mullet. If you wanted any other fish a jerk-jerk pause retrieve that imitated a shrimp was the ticket.

Camping was really nice due to the temperatures and no bugs. One night I saw over 2 dozen shooting stars in a 15 minute period.

 

[fatman]

damn, that's some fine work

 

[THE OUTLAW]

Hell ya ! 🇺🇸🏴‍☠️

 

[iMacattack]

nice work sir!

 

[fishicaltherapist]

Congrats on a FINE & enjoyable trip Viking !!!!

 

[dan_giddyup]

Living vicariously... thanks for the report and pics!

 

[BassFlats]

Any video John?

 

[Sublime]

Heck yeah

 

[Viking1]

Any video John?

I was able to shoot a lot of video and all the photos that I posted here except for the tent picture are screen grabs of the videos. I could not figure a way to post a video unless I posted it to YouTube or Vimeo. It will take me a week to go through all the video and edit into something I can put on my YouTube channel. If I am missing something and there is a way to post a video to this site let me know and I will do it. I posted a short video to a Facebook site of one of the tarpon jumping 3 times. I also have several videos of tarpon trying to hit me by throwing the jig back at me (this is why I like using single hooks as opposed to plugs with treble hooks)

 

[DBStoots]

I'm thinking the reds are absent because of changes to the water in the backcountry. We had really rainy late fall, which is kind of unusual. Anybody else thinking the same?

 

[Backcountry 16]

Very good report.

 

[Gaudy]

Thanks for sharing Viking. I wish I could be doing the same!

 

[lemaymiami]

The reds aren’t absent you have to fish where they are... and that changes with different conditions (something I need to remind myself from time to time...).

 

[TR.]

4 weeks and counting, thanks for getting me even more pumped!

 

[DBStoots]

The reds aren’t absent you have to fish where they are... and that changes with different conditions (something I need to remind myself from time to time...).

Bob, sure not finding them in many areas of the ENP and 10K Islands backcountry that would normally hold reds at this time of year. Why do you think that is?

 

[Viking1]

Bob, sure not finding them in many areas of the ENP and 10K Islands backcountry that would normally hold reds at this time of year. Why do you think that is?

I only get to fish the Everglades about 4 times a year now. Last year when I was down there in February the water temps were cooler. Spots that produced reds the previous years did not produce them this year even during similar tide stages. My guess is that the reds are staging in deeper water that is cooler. Most of the water I was fishing this trip was less than 5 feet and usually under 4 feet. If I really wanted to target reds on this trip I would have fished on the bottom of the deeper cuts. I can catch all the reds I want in NE Florida and I was having too much fun with the tarpon and snook to test the theory out. One other data point for this theory is that a few years ago the air temperature hit 34 F one morning and the water temp was in the 50s and nothing but reds were biting. I am interested to hear what Bob thinks.

 

[FlyBy]

4 weeks and counting, thanks for getting me even more pumped!

3 weeks for me.

 

[Ken T]

Nice Report!

 

[TieOneOnJax]

3 weeks for me.

14 days and 20 hours for me, but who’s counting?

 

[TieOneOnJax]

Last week I spent 5 days fishing and camping in the Everglades and 10K Islands. After seeing the weather reports for Texas and pretty much the rest of the country I felt blessed to be in Florida with days of 70 to 80 degree weather. The wind was really blowing during the time that I was fishing but this kept the bugs away. This is the first trip to this area in 50 years that I have not had to use bug spray and that includes the bad times around dawn and dusk. Fishing was excellent. The key was to find the cleanest water you could find (relative term given the amount of wind). Water temps varied very little from 78 to 80 degrees. Snook, trout, mangrove snapper, goliath groupers, jacks and lady fish where all active on the front side. Surprisingly this trip I did not catch one redfish where last trip every other fish was a red fish. In the backcountry snook and juvenile tarpon were active. Tarpon where rolling in dirty water but did not eat. Tarpon in clear/tannic water ate readily. Instead of blowing through areas I would motor very slowly looking for rolling fish. I used only artificial bait and the best producer was a 3" white plastic paddle tail on a 1/4 oz chartreuse jig. If you wanted to catch tarpon you used a steady retrieve like a swimming mullet. If you wanted any other fish a jerk-jerk pause retrieve that imitated a shrimp was the ticket.

Camping was really nice due to the temperatures and no bugs. One night I saw over 2 dozen shooting stars in a 15 minute period. View attachment 168138 View attachment 168140 View attachment 168141 View attachment 168142 View attachment 168143 View attachment 168144 View attachment 168145

Great report and great catching! I’m heading down soon and I’d be really excited if I was to do that well.

What campsite(s) did you stay at? Always thought a beach site would be cool but mooring up at night kinda sketches me out with the tide and weather sometimes conspiring against you without warning.