May 18, 2008 7:12 am US/Eastern
Fishing in Flamingo with Capt. Kerry Wingo
(CBS4)
Shortly after talking about my love for fishing and my lack of snook catching skills on the air, I get an email from Capt Kerry Wingo out of Key Largo. Would you like to come fishing with me? After an exhaustive 2 seconds of thought I gladly accepted!
We met in Florida City at 6:30 in the morning. Then we trailered his Ranger flats boat 40 miles across the Everglades to the extreme southern tip of the Florida mainland. Talk about remote... this is one of the few parts of the state that remains fairly untouched.
After putting in at the Flamingo boat ramp we headed out of a narrow channel leading out of the cove. Our target was snook but the tide wasn't quite right to fish where we wanted to at the moment so we decided to do some "rod bending", as Capt Kerry called it, while we were waiting. So we positioned ourselves in about 5 foot deep channel, in between two very shallow flats. The tide was running fairly strong, helping filter bait off the flats into the channel. We had 12 dozen live shrimp! And thank goodness 'cause we'd need every one of them. As soon as we shut the engine down, the rods starting bending left and right. We caught dozens of nice sized sea trout and leaping lady fish in about an hour's time. "There are a lot of fish in this area" Capt. Kerry explained and not as much fishing pressure being so far removed from the populated areas.
Now it was time to find the snook! We powered up the engine en route to a shallow water lagoon about 10 miles west. We didn't get far before running into one of Capt Kerry's friends who was just fishing the same area we were about to fish. He told us not to even bother; the tide and wind had washed most of the water out.
The wind was howling at 15-20 knots, the water was chocolate milk brown, and we didn't have many fishing options. So we headed back towards the marina to try pretty much the only area that was fish-able with these conditions. Our prospects of catching some snook were waning but I didn't matter much to me. Capt Kerry had already put us on a boatload of fish and I was just glad to be out on the water!
We positioned ourselves a couple of hundred feet from shore, up against a mangrove shoreline. But cast after cast, the snook just weren't there. Just when we were about to give up we got a snook report from another one of Capt Kerry's buds just down the shore from us. So we motored over and before even getting there we could see rods bending and reels screaming with the sounds of snook!
We anchored about 50 feet from the mangroves. There a few boats within casting distance of each other next to us. The tide was moving nicely and the snook were turned on! At any one time at least one boat was hooked up and more often there were multiple hook ups. We were casting right under the mangrove branches. When you get a hit, you better be lightning quick to tear them away from the branches or they'd hang you up. It was a blast battling the fish, knowing that one false move, one extra foot of line, is the difference between a landed fish and a busted line!
Most of the half-a-dozen fish I landed were on the smaller side. But the boats on our starboard landed a couple of monsters! We figured it was just a matter of time for our monster snook. But as snook fisherman will tell you, the snook bite can turn off in an instant when the tide stops. And just like that the bite was done. We lingered for about a half hour, just hoping a bigger snook would forget the bite was over. Cast after cast, the snook had no interest. Then on what was probably my last cast of the day, zap! I could tell from the hit, this was a little bigger. After a short, but intense battle, I landed the snook in the pictures below. Not a monster... but almost 28". In order to keep a snook in this part of the world it needs to be 28-33". No matter, we weren't keeping it anyway. This was a strictly catch and release day!
I want to thank Capt. Kerry Wingo for a great time! If you'd like more information about fishing Flamingo or the Florida Keys here's his information.
Tailsup Fishing
Contact Captain Kerry Wingo
Phone: 305-394-1383
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