Florida Vacation - Beach/Pass Fishing Short Report

With all of the nasty rains we have had, and skyrocketing water levels....

I had to come back from my tropical vacation to this......

Recently I was at Florida with Nikki visiting our families, and we also got to do a lot of fishing. One of the days I was playing around at a beach pass where the ocean met a bay through an inlet. I was throwing a tropical intermediate line with a small sparse baitfish pattern, and it proved to be interesting light tackle fly fishing. I was simply casting out and stripping back in areas that looked fishy, and I ended up increasing my species resume quite a bit.

Blue Runner - Captiva/Sanibel Island Blind Pass

Admiring the power of the Jack Crevalle - What a tough little machine!

A close up look at the Crevalle

Small Ladyfish caught at Sanibel/Captiva Blind Pass

Built for speed.... ladyfish are the closest relative to bonefish and tarpon

My First Flounder Caught on a Fly Rod - Gulf Flounder

Fly pinned in this flounder's grill.......

Fishing Blind Pass - Captiva/Sanibel Island

Smiling about the freakiest catch of the day.....what is it?

Lookdown Fish - a rare catch supposedly - in the Jack Family

Beach fishing proved to be very fun and interesting. I was totally winging it, and was learning on the spot how to get into these fish. I got several of the Jack Crevalle to take, and the other fish were mostly incidental while targeting the jack type species that were running through. I could see baitfish boils and predatory takes on the surface; so I knew I was in an area where fish were (besides having lots of other people fishing in the area). Surprisingly, I was the only person out there fly fishing, but it just shows how many fly fishing opportunities go untouched out there. It was also rewarding to see that I was getting into fish more consistently compared to the other anglers, and most of them were using live bait. Flies work well at times I feel due due to the subtle presentations (my super sparse pattern was too hard to resist) and being able to cover the water super effectively in some areas.

I will be posting more about this trip, but this is my first blurb about it for now. Next will be posting about our snook guided trip we went on. 

Tight lines......