Ten Thousand Islands Report and Photo Essay

Ten Thousand Islands Report

Thank you for reading this Ten Thousand Islands Report. Mike Conneen, River Dog and I headed down there Sunday, camping at Monument Lake for the first night. Monument Lake has awesome sunrises and sunsets.

Monday morning we launched the Bang-O-Craft (yes, you read that right) with our two kayaks in it, then loaded the camp gear into the boat, and relegating the kayaks to pontoon status. Our goal was Gullivan Key.

Arriving there, we set up camp, then went for a fish. Mike and I went in different directions. He got a redfish. I got a single strike from a snook on a soft plastic bait while circumnavigating the key. Not great fishing, but no skunks were seen.

The following morning’s tide requires us to wait a while before commencing our fishing, since the water was so far away when we got up. No matter, I’ll take photos of the sunrise.

Once the boats were launched, we again split up, Mike going to another key, I again circumnavigating Gullivan Key. Mike got several small snook. I got one, and a small ladyfish. Not great, but no skunk.

Back at camp at high but still incoming tide, the long sand spit we were camped on was getting covered with water. The birds sitting at the tip had to keep moving closer to us. My camera was out and good use was made of the opportunity.

We also discussed what the plan should be the following day. We decided to move to Panther Key after fishing at Turtle Key first.

Turtle Key provided me with my best fishing of the trip. Fly casting while wading, several ladyfish, one decent trout, one small snook, and one fine redfish ate my flies. Trout-snook-redfish- that’s an Everglades slam! Mike got some unimpressive fish, but that’s not none!

Then the tide got too high, so we returned to Gullivan, packed up, and moved to Panther Key.

By the time we got set up, the wind was blowing out of the west, right into our faces. Nice! Made it bug-free! But it was too rough to try to fish, so we just kicked back.

Part of kicking back was doing some photography.

Thursday morning the tide got finally got high enough to float us. We headed to the Gulfside point. Mike got a nice redfish.

I got a dink ladyfish, fly casting while wading for almost three hours. S-L-O-W. Once the tide was too high, and frankly disillusioned about the number of fish we’d caught as well as all the fish we hadn’t seen, I headed back towards camp, tossing the spin rod. I got a bottom-of-the-slot redfish, the only bite I got.

I sat in my beach chair, had lunch, took a camp bath, and spent a couple hours watching the water. No breaking fish. No dolphins. No fishermen. Most telling, no birds – cormorants, pelicans, terns, all missing. We had not seen any fish in the water, and hardly any bait. There were hardly any fish where we were fishing!

When Mike got back I suggested we leave the next day. He concurred. The sun got low. The wind completely died. The bugs were awful. The sunset was awesome though. I got bit pretty good getting the photos. The bites will fade. I’ll have the pics for the rest of my life.