# Spring Break Fishin'



## Dustin1 (Feb 11, 2007)

I took a rare week off from my research to chase some fish in the skinny stuff. Overall, the fishing was lousy, but I put some serious miles on the new Gheenoe and still caught some good fish. Over the course of the week, I fished out of Steinhatchee, Horseshoe Beach, Wacassassa, Ozello, Matlacha, Port of the Islands, and Everglades City. The tides and water clarity were pretty much crap along the Big Bend due to the rivers dumping tons of fresh water. The trout bite up here isn't even a fraction of what is normally is this time of year. There are still some good redfish around, but they're very scattered. The only way I caught good fish was sight-fishing on the low tide...high water was extremely tough (which is very unusual). 

The fishing in the Glades was pretty comparable to what the bunch at Watson's experienced. My fiance and I caught a few scattered smallish snook with a handful of nice reds and jacks thrown in. I did get to cast at a ~70lb laid up "sleeper" tarpon on Saturday near Fakahatchee Bay, but the fish spooked. Honestly, that was the highlight of the trip! We fished Matlacha for a few hours Sunday morning on the way home and got into a bunch of nice 4-5lb jacks and a good red. 

We took a bunch of pictures over the course of the week. All of the reds are 26-31". Enjoy!

Start it off with some Big Bend action...


























































































Now we'll ease on down south to the Glades...

Ashley's first snook









First jack...








































































It was a fun week. My only regret is that I didn't get to throw a fly much at all except to catch some jacks. The water clarity was so bad that I had to be on the platform to sight-fish...kind of difficult to manage all that and throw a fly at the same time when you're fishing solo.


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## deerfly (Mar 10, 2007)

great looking fish there JD. You picked some real gems for fishing spots on your break. Ozello and Fakahatchee are two very cool places to fish, very similar and very different at the same time. Definitely a couple of my favorites. Matlacha is neat too, laid back Key's sorta pace there. Wife and I did an anniversary weekend there last summer. 

Seems the juvenile snook are everywhere now, which can only be good. Still fun to catch and really neat to look at, kinda like baby tigers in my mind. Ya know their gonna be bad a$$ when the get bigger.  Great report. - eric


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## Weedy (Dec 11, 2006)

Great looking pics, bet she had fun with that large jack!


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## St._Sophie_Girl (Dec 13, 2006)

Awesome report!! Looks like we have a Sam Jr on our hands... ;D

Love the pictures... they're great!


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## fishgitr (Feb 18, 2008)

Great job as always! Tell Mike to smile better next time as he doesent get out as often as he should. ;D


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## Apollobeachsam (Dec 14, 2006)

Nice quality fish man... 

Man you fished alot of places in a week... very cool though.


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## newbie_dave (May 31, 2007)

Looks like a great time was had by both of you!! Great report and pics.


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## inboardgheenoeguy (Dec 17, 2006)

All I can say is WOW!


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## ucfsae81 (Dec 5, 2007)

nice report


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