Flamingo (Everglades National Park)

[Capt. BassinLou]

I don't post here very often because I don't saltwater fish as often as I would like, but when I do, they are FUN trips. A good friend of mine invited me out on his boat yesterday to fish at Flamingo which is in the Everglades National Park, or what I like to call the land of the lost.



We arrived at the ramp before sunrise, and by the time we prepped and were ready to go, dawn was approaching. We set out to our first spot. By the time we arrived it was already 8am.  But!! The long run was worth it. We stayed and fished this location for over 2.5 hrs and managed to land snook, jack, mackeral, and tarpon.







At around 10:45 my friend told me it was time to go to THE SPOT, which he calls VALHALLA. This location is several miles off shore and its the land where giants live. When I mean giants I mean, Goliath grouper the size of sofa's, huge Bull sharks, Cobia, Tarpon, and host of other fish that buckle you over and put your tackle to shame.



Many will not believe what I'm about to share, and that's ok. Over the course of 2.5 hours we lost over 1 ton of fish in some of the most epic battles I have ever experienced. Literally.  We battled 4 goliath groupers, each in the triple digits, landed none (meaning touch the leader). Battled 4 huge bull sharks, only landed 1, which happened to be the biggest one of the outing. Battled a 100lb+ tarpon only to have it eaten by large bull shark. And a few other battles where we couldn't identify what fish we were fighting. To say we got our asses kicked is an under statement.







Several storms began to form causing us to leave the area, and head in to another spot closer inland.  At this spot, we managed to catch a snapper, a baby cobia, and lost a very nice sized grouper. At around 4:45pm we had to call to the trip, due to the distance we were from the ramp. On our run back to the ramp, a pod of dolphins decided to form up next to the boat and swim along with us. 









As you can see, we survived the trip. After the outing we were physically exhausted, but had smiles from ear to ear. Might take a couple of days to recuperate, but if given another opportunity, I would LOVE to go out there again!!

Thanks for reading.

[big g]

What a trip, nice too have people in the know with you.  When you say land of the lost, easy to get turned around if the Sat connection goes down, it happened to a friend and they spent the night when they ran a ground.  Thanks for the report, were you using wire leaders on all the tackle?

[Capt. BassinLou]

What a trip, nice too have people in the know with you.  When you say land of the lost, easy to get turned around if the Sat connection goes down, it happened to a friend and they spent the night when they ran a ground.  Thanks for the report, were you using wire leaders on all the tackle?

Thanks George. Fortunately my friend takes very good precautions, and has an emergency beacon/communication system in the event of an emergency, precisely for this place.

We were not using wire leaders. We were using very heavy fluorocarbon leaders in the 60lb class.

To land the big shark, we used 200lb braid, and a 300lb FC leader. With a huge circle hook.

[FlatsNBay]

What a trip! Did you throw a popping frog?

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[Capt. BassinLou]

What a trip! Did you throw a popping frog?

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Lol!!,,,,  no btw.

[Mike Cork]

Awesome trip. I was once stationed on a hidden island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, seven miles north of the equator, and we had this kind of fishing.

[Pferox]

What a great Day!
I remember those days, thanks for the refresh.
Glad you had a great time, nice mix of species.
Next time, take movies.