The Report from Spotted Tail 3/19/11

Upcoming Events-

On April 9 I’ll be giving fly tying lessons at Mosquito Creek Outdoors in Apopka, starting at noon. We’ll be tying wooly worms and wooly buggers. Come out and see us.

Don’t know how I got on his e-mailing list but I get a weekly blog from a fellow by the name of Bruce Turkel. It’s often interesting and thought provoking. This week’s was especially relevant. You can read it at this link: http://turkeltalks.com/index.php/2011/03/14/whats-even-better-than-being-lucky/

Fishing was pretty solid this week. The week had the most perfect weather I’ve seen well, maybe ever.

Monday fly caster Warren Pearson joined me for a day’s fishing on Mosquito Lagoon. We had a good time. The weather was fantastic, and we were in fish most of the day. In spite of being a weak caster Mr. Pearson got himself a couple fine reds and missed several strikes.

On Tuesday the scene was repeated with John Stafford. Mr. Stafford preferred spin tackle. On about his fourth cast of the day a 16 pound red inhaled his DOA CAL jerkbait. If I said it got better after that it would be an exaggeration. But it stayed pretty darned good and eight or nine reds and trout were released.

Wednesday luck went south though. Mike Rudy and his friend Jim joined me, again on Mosquito Lagoon. We found a big school of fish right away and couldn’t get a bite on anything, including mullet chunks. Jim hooked a fish from the second school we found, only to break it off. We found a third school and could not get a bite, and ended up with one break-off and no released fish, in spite of seeing hundreds of reds. The weather was beautiful, and we had a good time. But it was a frustrating day from a fishing standpoint.

Thursday fly fisher Jose Colon, president of New York’s Salty Flyrodders, joined me. Again the weather was awesome, and again we saw loads of fish. Again they were not biting very well. This week had the fullest full moon of the year, since the full moon coincided with the lunar perigee. I wonder if that had anything to do with the redfish behavior the past couple of days? Anyhow, Jose did get one on a brown redfish worm, and missed a couple of strikes. He had hundreds of shots. Both of us enjoyed the day tremendously.

A redfish virgin no longer. Sr. Colon and his fish.

I had Friday off. What does a fishing guide do on his day off? He goes fishing! Scott Radloff and I went out of Port Canaveral looking for tripletail and cobia. There were lots of tripletail out there, although most we saw were small. We did get a 22 inch fish on a DOA Shrimp. We spent hours looking for cobia. Finally this enormous black shape materialized briefly. I cast a home-tied jig at it and hooked up immediately. Some minutes later a 30 pound class cobia was netted by Scott. I’ll be firing up the smoker later today.

No one wants to see pictures of me, but the fish is nice!

Embrace simplicity.

Life is great and I love my work!

Life is short- go fishing!

John Kumiski
http://www.spottedtail.com/

All content in this blog, including writing and photos, copyright John Kumiski 2011. All rights are reserved.