SaltyShores Close-Up: Flamingo, Florida by Jan Maizler

SaltyShores Close-Up: Flamingo, Florida

Jan Maizler

Though recent times has seen the Everglades National Park shut down for about two weeks, and now re-open, the flats fishing was, is, and no doubt will be stupendous- providing the habitat does not get peppered by debilitating cold fronts.

This is the story of two half-day trips Alan Williams and I made with Captain Jason Sullivan. If my schedule were less hectic, I’m sure the same marvelous results could have been achieved in one day. Jason’s 17-foot Maverick HPX performed wonderfully and got us into the skinniest waters.

Alan and I would meet Jason in Florida City and drive with him down to Flamingo.

On the first day, Jason made a long run in search of a huge school of redfish he’d “been on” during the last few days. After an hour, we found them. The school seemed to stretch for fifty yards with tails popping up seemingly everywhere. When Jason got us in casting range Alan and I both fired off weedless soft plastics into their midst. I immediately got a strike, and my fish blew up the water instantly with thrashes, spooking the huge school in all directions. After a minute, my hook pulled, leaving us with nothing more than some frothed -up water and fast-beating hearts! Though I wanted to pursue the reds, Jason declined. He felt the tide would be perfect for snook back towards Flamingo and he wanted to pursue un-pressured fish in the few hours we had remaining for the day.

It turned out to be a great decision, as we caught a pile of snook in the remaining time, including a trophy-sized snook Alan took on a topwater plug.

On our second half-day trip, Jason was highly optimistic about the redfishing we’d be doing for three reasons: glassy calm water, fishing during the low tide, and the recent reports of lots of single fish to make presentations to, versus huge spookable schools.

Towards that end, we were into tailing reds within ten minutes of leaving the Flamingo marina. Indeed, those superb conditions plus Jason’s expert guiding delivered up redfish all morning long.