November brought lots of wind and cold weather, but that didn’t keep the fish from bighting. Most of my trips this month were in Flamingo Everglades National park. With cold water temperatures and windy conditions, there was no other choice but to fish the glades and hide out of the wind.
I’ve had very few fly tips this month and most of the fishing has been on spin tackle using artificial and plenty of jig and shrimp combinations. This is the best way to find fish especially when their holding in run-off’s and ditches with cold water temperatures. On almost every trip to Flamingo has produced plenty of snook, redfish and trout. Most of the redfish and snook have been holding in ditches and motes around the islands, and when the weather is cooperating the grass flats have had plenty of redfish to be sight fished with flies and artificial.
The coastline on the western part of Florida Bay and the outer banks has been producing plenty of Mackerel and bluefish. When you find the birds diving on bait schools you found your macks and blues. I like using a top water plug or a silver or gold spoon to catch them. With fly anglers I’ve been using a white and chartreuse clouser minnow tied on a 1/0 long shank hook to prevent brake off’s.
These fish are allot of fun, and you can usually find them working bait schools early in the morning. This is when you want to get out their and work the schools bend the rod catch fifty to a hundred fish in a couple of hours and then go fish for snook and reds as the water starts to warm up. Most of my trips this month have produces plenty of 20 to 40 redfish and snook day’s not including the trout, mackerel and bluefish.
Biscayne Bay and Upper Keys bonefishing has been good when it’s not blowing 20 plus mph and water temperatures are less than 69 degrees. The bonefishing has been best around10:30 am all the way towards sunset. Most of the fish have been swimming on the ocean side in deep water anywhere from three to five feet. For my fly anglers I’ve been using flies with heavy led eyes in order to fish them in deeper water. The old clouser minnow has been doing the trick.
The Permit fishing has already slowed down, but on those blue bird sky warm day’s you can occasionally find them feeding on the ocean side flats.
The night time tarpon fishing should start to pick up now in December off Miami’s Government cut and bridges. The shrimp are running and that means the tarpon are not too far behind.
That’s all I have for now and I apologize for not having any pictures on this report, because I need to get out their and buy a new camera. My cannon fell over the side of the boat in deep water and never to be found. I’m still debating if I should buy a fancy Nikon D-40 or stay with something simple. I’ve lost two cameras and several cell phones on the boat and as much as I like to take pictures I can’t justify spending over a thousand dollars and have it fall in the water again.
