The Florida Keys was hit with another minor cold front yesterday..  Producing lots of clouds and a little rain..   Today we had light north west winds and mostly sunny.  Water temperatures were in the high 70's and low 80's.

  We did not find many tarpon today, but we did find one hungry one.  Alberto came all the way from Italy to catch this tarpon on a bunny fly..

BRAVO!!

                                               She ate It!!!

I love saying that...  The last several days the weather has improved considerably...  Light winds, sun and Lots of very happy tarpon....  Water temperatures are in the high 70's and low 80's and the tarpon have been  cooperative..  We have been doing well with a tan toad fly stripped very slowly....  The key word is Slowly..... 

I still have several days available during tarpon season.. Also I can certainly recommend some  of my fellow guide friends if you need some other days..

Current available days.....

April 30th

May 1,5,6,19,25,26

June 5-8, 14-30

Had the pleasure of fishing with John Courney and Bruce Pershing for the last 6 days..  John and Bruce are partners in the Scenic Valley Lodge located near the Missourri River, just outside Craig Mt. 

Yesterday, John had a shot at a tailing permit just as a huge cloud blotted out our view of the fish...    "I said "Bad time for a cloud.."  We laughed and agreed it made for a good title of a fishing report..  Actualy we had several days with lots of clouds, lots of wind and a few shots at permit and tarpon.....

The first day of the trip was great.. Light wind.. blue skies and tarpon every were......

     John boated his first big tarpon.       

           Congradulations   John!!!!!

If you are not in the Keys now, you should be.....

Tarpon fishing had been pretty good this last week, depending on the weather,  Yesterday was tough..  we had lots of cloud cover, which makes it tough to sight fish..  However we finished up the day with a bunch of shots at laid up tarpon, floating near the surface in 81 degree water..  One even ate a toad fly..

Today started with solid cloud cover,, twilight zone, Rod sterling, cloud cover...  Tarpon are more inclined to roll in low light situations..  I had spin anglers today and we put three tarpon in the air with live bait and plugs in a channel..  When the clouds left, we switched to sight fishing the flats for permit and cudas..  Got a bunch of shots at both..

The reports from some of my other friends were the same..  My buddy Jack Teauge had the day off and got a tarpon on fly today fishing with Dale Bishop  Good Job Guys!  The only other report was from my friend Bob Bieghly who got three tarpon today too!!  Bob emailed me this photo, taken with his cell phone..    NICE!!!

Tarpon Season Is My Favorite Time Of Year....

                                    Jasmine with a shark...

It is Spring Break and I have been doing several father and son trips..  Today I got to take a father, Aunt and daughter fishing...  It was a blast!!  I love watching kids get excited and have fun catching fish..

We staked up in several foot of water and chummed in sharks... even a couple of permit tooo...

 Jasmine got to spot and cast to sharks for several hours..

I can't say it enough....  Take a kid fishing....  I still remember trips when I was a kid when my dad, grandfather and uncles took me..

Weather has finally warmed up here in the Florida Keys..  High temperatures around 80 for the rest of the week..

Today I had the pleasure of fishing with Michael and Lori from South Carolina...  We got a couple of shots at 100 lb laid up tarpon first thing in the morning... Then opted to switch to permit...  Should have stuck with the tarpon..  permit were elusive today, but we did get a shot at one tailing permit,,,,,

My charter for today cancelled..  It was a guest vacationing at a near by high end resort, so I never got the chance to tell him how good the fishing was..  told the concierge, but ...  Oh well...

                          Easter Tarpon          

The up side is  I did get to go fishing with my friend Jack Teauge.  It has been a cold winter here in the keys and my guide season started full swing before the tarpon showed up.  My anglers have hooked, jumped and boated tarpon this year but I have been a spectator up until today..  Jack poled me into a nice laid up tarpon that wolfed down a toad fly.. 

           Remora on fly.

We got 6 great jumps, before the hook pulled out at the boat...  Perfect release..  I hate stressing tarpon with the final tug of war at the boat. 

A remora attacked the fly after the hook pulled.  Remoras have a sucker on the top of thier heads and hitch hike larger fish, usualy sharks.  This one had to have attached it self to the tarpon...

Another fish story and another fun day on the flats!!!

Thanks Jack!!!!

Fished the last three days with Jack and Jay...  Two brothers from  from Colorodo... Great guys and lots of fun..

Day 1.... Was April 1st and they jokingly refered to them selfs as the "April Fools" ...

Fools no.. fun yes.. they managed to get three tarpon to eat a toad fly their first day of salt water fishing.. 

Good Job guys!!!

Day 2.....   The wind picked up... fishing got tougher.. we still had some shots at big tarpon, but with the wind blowing the boat down on the fish, our window of oppertunity closed quickly...  we did have some fun with smaller sharks on fly out of the wind.

Day 3......  We decided to do some thing completly different..  we targeted permit on the gulf edge instead...  had several good shots.. had two eats and also bagged a couple of sharks, one that ripped us into the backing with a 12 wt.  Jay was a lot more comfortable with a fly rod then a spinning rod, but did boat a dandy cuda with a tube lure..

I will add the tarpon photos when I get them from Jack...