On the annual family pilgrimage to Florida I made the inevitable visit to BassPro and bought a TFO 9’ #8 TiCRr X rod, Lamson Konic 3.5 and Rio Bonefish line to do a wee bit of salt water flyfishing during the second week of the holiday when we were going to the Gulf Coast near Sarasota.
Once we got there I tried wade fishing a couple of times over grass flats. I had a bit of a sphincter clenching moment when I was waist deep and saw a large dorsal fin about 50 yards away coming towards me. After a few seconds I breathed a sigh of relief when I realised it was a dolphin. I didn’t touch anything on either session so decided to do a wee bit of research on tackle and tactics on the internet. Whilst doing so I discovered a local guide’s website for, amongst other things, fly fishing for snook from the beach. I phoned the guide, Steve Gibson, who told me the conditions weren’t good but if they improved he’d take me out. The evening before my last day he phoned and said everything was looking good for the final morning of my holiday.
I met up with him at 7am, and was on a quiet beach by 7.30am. Steve advised the hot spot was about a mile along the beach so off we set on foot. I never saw a fish en-route, but exactly where Steve said the fish would be, there they were. Local knowledge wins again. There were umpteen small schools of snook cruising the shallows just a few feet in from the edge of the beach. You could only see them when the sun was really shining – if it was obscured by a cloud the fish were so well camouflaged they just seemed to merge into the sand.
Although there were loads of snook in the hot spot (which was a stretch of beach about half a mile long) they were easily spooked and you had to get your fly near them and working as soon as it touched the water. It took me a while to put everything together the way Steve was telling me. When I did I had an awesome take – all I saw was a huge white gaping maw appear from nowhere and engulf the fly. It nearly wrenched my arm off and broke 20lb leader in under 1 second. A while after that I got a couple of smaller snook, one at around 3lb, the better at 5lb. They went like rockets, and the larger one made several good runs that had the new reel screaming.
Great fun and I've learned a new style of fly fishing which I'll definitely use again. If you’re ever in the Sarasota area, I’d highly recommend Steve as a guide.
http://www.kayakfishingsarasota.com/index.htmlCheers
Cammy
