The evening before I had made up a few flies...some in a crab pattern and some in a 4-inch sinking green and white minnow pattern. I knew that I was going to target some Redfish the next morning on a very low incoming swing tide. The sand bar flat was next to the old Ice House in the Pirate Harbor channel leading out to the open waters of Charlotte Harbor in Southwest Florida. The old Ice House, as it has been referred to over the years has been reduced to only the original 15 or so pilings in about 8-10 feet of water.
This sand/grass flat that runs along the south side of those pilings extends to the south for several miles, however, the immediate area of the sand/grass flat that is my favorite haunt is about 400 yards long by about 200 yards wide. When the tides are going to be very low this flat is nearly dry with numerous sand holes scattered throughout and numerous little channels leading in from the deeper water. The fish use these channels to migrate up onto the flat when the water depth increases so that they can begin looking for their favorite foods. These are excellent locations to set up on and wait for the fish and the action to come to you.
About a month previous I was motoring an old 60s vintage 13 foot Boston Whaler using the electric trolling motor. As I was nearing those pilings in about 6-8 feet of water I noticed two very large Bull Redfish swimming side by side just below my boat. I have seen large Redfish in that area before but never the very large Bull Reds. When I am going to fly fish those flats I will often run my boat right up on the outside edge of the sandy areas and anchor during the last hour of the falling tide, so that when the tide comes back in I don't have to worry about going swimming for my boat. I could be quite a distance from my boat wade fishing. The area on the deepwater side of this flat faces the open waters of the harbor with the water depth dropping off quickly to about 8-10 feet deep. I have seen schools of large Tarpon swimming back and forth along the edge of this flat. I have also seen the Florida Manatee frequent this same area with large Cobia and Redfish swimming all around them foraging for whatever the Manatees scare up on the bottom. So this is one of my favorite places to wade fish with my flyrod. Deep turtle grass covers much of the top of the flat and is the nursery grounds for crabs and shrimps as well as many varieties of small baitfish. I have also seen large Bull Sharks in the same deeper portion just off the flat looking for wounded Tarpon.
So the next morning about 9 am, the air is cool and the skies are a deep blue as I beach my boat on the sandy edge of the flat, and set out the anchor to hold it in place. I have a box of different types of flies in both top pockets and spare leader material and just about everything else I need for my short walk on the near dry white sand and to the outside edge of the flat and set up my watching post. Watching and stalking is what wade fly fishing is all about. It is very much like still hunting. You move slow, quiet, only a few steps at a time, and then watch the water's surface for signs of feeding fish. It is not uncommon to stalk right upon an unsuspecting Redfish. They have a unique way of showing their location by raising their tails and sometimes their entire backs out of the water when rooting around and feeding on crabs and shrimps on the grassy bottom. They will also lie in wait in sand depressions and completely crash the surface when chasing small minnows. This is a favorite time for small topwater popper flies. These fish are in no real hurry to leave the receding water falling off the flats, as this is their feeding time. They just move along slowly rooting out their favorite morning meal. So I try to look for them on the last hour of the outgoing and first hour of the incoming tides as this is the perfect water depth for them to show their locations. In between tide swings, I just kill time back at my boat or just wander around doing some rooting of my own when there is no water movement. The fish are not going to feed at this time no matter what you try. When there is no water movement from tides the fish just honker down and sit. I have witnessed this on many occasions with multiple species of fish just lying together waiting for the water to begin to move again. When the water begins to flow back onto the flats, the second half of the game begins.
Earlier that morning before the tide stopped, I thought that I had seen some very large tails waving in the air about 125 yards down the sandy edge of the flat. They were in about 18 inches of water. I made it a mental point to mark that location and return back to it. I was hoping what I had seen was real, and maybe those same fish that went out in a little deeper water will return back to feeding in that same location when the tide begins to come back in. As luck would have it that day these Bull Reds didn't show up. But I did catch a few Redfish back on top of the flat in the deep turtle grass as they were feeding on the incoming tide. I just followed what appeared like a small school of maybe 10-12 fish catching 2 of them.
Tides can be tricky sometimes. Just when you think you have a good plan mapped out for the next morning, things just don't go as planned. Tide charts are a good starting point, but knowing how wind affects tides in both outgoing and incoming can be an asset well beforehand. The strength of the wind blowing and the direction at which it is blowing are factors that will change the depth of the water that you intend on fishing. For example, the tide chart indicates that at 9 am will be a low tide. So you plan on being on the water at your location at least an hour beforehand. However, there is an offshore breeze (blowing inland) of about 10 mph at the same time period. That wind will push against the tidal flow and keep it from getting as low as predicted. The same for an onshore breeze, only in this example the wind will blow the water out causing it to drop even more. So now you would need to go even earlier before the wind blows all of the water off the flat and causing it to go nearly completely dry. This happens in winter and spring tides here. The wind, even though it seems not all that strong that flyfishing is not possible, can ruin a day of the flats stalking Redfish. That opposite effect happens on the outgoing tide and incoming wind...the flat never gets a chance to lose its water. The fish are still there you just can't see them because of too much water.
This morning, however, was a perfect morning to catch a few Redfish. The air was cool with no wind blowing, which is always a good thing when fly fishing... the wind is your enemy. I did catch a nice legal 27 inch fish on the outgoing tide. I was walking along on the white sandy bottom next to the channel out to my lookout location, my initial setup point. I noticed off to my left a tail pop up about 25 yards away. I slowly made a diagonal trek to get out in front of this feeding fish trying to head him off. I needed to get in front of that fish to be able to properly present the crab fly well out in front of him and let him swim up to it. It's funny how these fish don't appreciate a kamikaze (attack) crab swimming directly at them....it just doesn't work that way. So I was able to get the fly out in front of that fish by about 4 feet and just let it sit there on the bottom in the grass until the fish was nearly directly on top of it. Crabs and shrimp stay hidden in the deep turtle grass until a fish gets too close and then will scurry out from under a Redfish trying to escape being eaten. My tactic worked pretty well that morning as I just barely bumped that crab fly a couple of inches and the fish jumped all over that fly giving me a nice fight on my 10 weight fly rod, which BTW was a bit too heavy for that small of a fish. I intended on hopefully catching a much larger fish that morning. This rod was actually my Tarpon rod capable of handling a 100-pound Tarpon.
After releasing that smaller Redfish I continued my way to my lookout station on the outside of this flat where the channel begins in my quest for a much larger Redfish...a Bull Red. I scanned the water looking for a sign that the tide had begun to come in. I saw a couple of small stingrays swim by which is a good indicator that the tide had changed. I planned on being there for about an hour or until the water depth rose to over 12 inches deep where I was standing and how cooperative the Redfish were. I watched along the edge of the white sandy flat to where the water drops off deeper, as this is most likely where these big fish will come in from. The white sand also provides better contrast for any fish that swims over it. Being that these fish are much larger, they need more water depth to fill in over the flat so that they can get their fat bodies in there. However, they may or may not even go up onto the top of the flat as they require larger size food prey. They are hunting larger crabs and schools of finger mullet that travel along the edge of the flat. Any little patch of grass that can hide a crab or a couple of small fish from these big boys is also a good location to concentrate your efforts on watching. I had seen several smaller Redfish waving their tails behind me on the flat but I didn't want to waste time chasing the little guys for fear of not seeing the one I came for.
The tide had come in and was now about 6 inches deep where I was standing. I began walking slowly backward, stopping often to scan the water, keeping an eye out for any signs of Large Redfish...the ones that are called "Bull Reds". These generally are much larger fish over 36-40 inches in length, but it is not uncommon to see one larger than that in this location as I had done previously. Usually, these Bull Reds are the breeders, generally staging out in the open waters of the Gulf where they spawn and most often stay offshore. I'm hoping for the one that somehow got lost.
The white sandy bottom provided a perfect contrast for any fish moving over it. It was at that very moment that I saw a huge tail of a Redfish break the surface of the calm water about 120 feet away. I quickly got the fly line in the air and on the second false cast, letting the fly line shoot thru the rod guides. The fly landed on the sandy bottom right next to a small patch of turtle grass about 60 feet away. I could easily see where the fly landed even though it was about 12 inches deep. I let it just sit there in hopes that the huge Redfish would continue to swim towards it. I could see what looked like a large dark body swimming along about 3 feet from the edge of the flat. When he got to within 3 feet away from it, I bumped the fly a couple of times hoping he would see the movement of the large crab fly...he did indeed.
The huge Redfish crashed my crab fly and inhaled it. I made a strip strike to embed the hook in its mouth. The big fish raced past me just off the edge of sand and I could tell that this one was the "ONE". The fish went around my boat which quickly became a major water hazard but I managed to get the fly line around the motor and it was off to the races from this point. We went around the edge of the flat where the hard white sandy bottom ends and turns into a soft grassy bottom. This area opens up into a small bay and deeper water, which was a good thing no hazards out there. The fly reel's drag was not much up for a bulldog type run as this fish was quickly spooling my 300 yards of 30-pound Dacron backing off the reel. I may be in deep trouble if this fish doesn't stop soon unless I want to go swimming after it.
Just then I saw a boat up on plane heading out the channel a couple of hundred yards away. I waved the man and woman down and motioned for them to come over to me. When they got close enough to see the bend in my flyrod their eyes were as large as dinner plates. I asked if I could come on board their boat and chase this fish down and they said yeas..by all means. I got to the front of the boat and motioned where the fish was and we began to follow it slowly. I then told them that this was a very large "Bull Red", well over 40 inches. I managed to get some backing line back onto the fly reel. I asked the man if he knew how to back down a boat around a large fish like this one and he said that he did. Great I was thinking...one less thing to worry about. The most dangerous time of landing a big fish is when it gets close to the boat. You have to keep the back of the boat away from the fish by keeping it in front at all times. If the fish dives under the boat you need to raise the motor immediately as the motor becomes the largest hazard in cutting your fish off. You basically keep the boat motor in reverse and at idle speed until you need to make a quick maneuver away from the fish. This is not always easy but experienced captains know how to do this and thankfully I had one this day.
This was quickly becoming a "cat and mouse game" as I could not exert very much pressure on this fish with so much line out of the reel. The water exerts a lot of side pressure on the line and can often exceed the test strength of the line and knots, of which there are a lot of knots in fly lines. I would gain back about 75 yards and the fish would take off on another run and peel off 100 yards. I was losing ground at this pace. I said let go a little faster so I can get back more line. It was a back and forth battle but a battle I was intending to win. After about 45 minutes or so we finally got to the point where the knot between the 30-pound backing and the fly line was back onto the reel. I now only had about 50 feet between me and this fish to overcome and where things can get dangerous very quickly. The fish is stressed and the boat is scaring it. At this point is where I can now apply side pressure with the fly rod in hopes of ending this battle quickly. I got the fish on its side and up closer to the boat. I asked the captain, "do you have a Boga Grip on board" at about the same time as he produced one in his hand. I didn't want this battle to last much longer as this fish is building up lactic acid in its body from the stress. Too much lactic acid and he will not recover, and this one has to go back as it is illegal to keep a Redfish over 27 inches. I eased the fish over to the side of the boat and the captain got a good hold on the fish's mouth with the Boga Grip. We are now home... we won the battle and now can relax for a short bit.
I always carry a small digital camera in a waterproof box and a 6ft. soft measuring tape with me for days just like this one. I measured the fish while it was still in the water. We had the boat moving forward slowly to keep fresh oxygenated water flowing through its gills. This huge fish measured 48.5 inches in length and 26 inches around its girth (diameter). The formula for getting a pretty good estimate on how much a fish weighs when you don't have access to a scale is to take the length x the girth squared divided by 800. This fish weighed approximately 41 pounds. (48.5 x [26 x 26] 676 / 800...equals 40.98 pounds. That is a "BIG FISH" and one that I will remember for a very long time. I have had much larger fish on a fly rod only to lose them right at the boat before I could get a measurement or photo. That was a Tarpon that I estimated at over 100 pounds. I had the knot of the leader inside the flyrod which is considered a legal catch. However, I believe that this fish was a much more memorable catch for me personally.
I handed my camera to the woman while I carefully lifted the fish out of the water to make a couple of photos and had the captain get in as well as now he can tell this story with authority. After the quick 20-second photo session, I returned the big fish back into the water while holding onto the Boga Grip. We slowly motored along for about 10-15 minutes or so to get the fish's strength back to the point where it wanted to swim off. I released the Boga Grip and let him swim away. We got back to my boat and I got into it and thanked the captain and his wife immensely and said that I could have never landed that big fish by myself.
About a month later, I contacted the taxidermists down in Naples, Florida that had done a replica Snook mount for me a number of years ago. I gave him the dimensions and how I wanted the fish mounted. I sent him the photos of the fish in good sunlight as this is critical in getting the fish's colors correct and get the spots on the tail correct. That mount now resides on my wall next to the large 43-inch Snook mount that my wife had caught nearly 25 years ago.
A majority of this story is true, in that this location was indeed one of my favorite flats for fly fishing. I have caught a number of large fish on or very near this exact same flat. In fact, my personal best Redfish on the fly was a 39.5-inch fish that I caught while I was tossing a very large Tarpon fly into a school of mullet, hoping to entice a following Tarpon to grab the fly. Instead, this Redfish grabbed it and when I got that fish to the boat there were about 5 or 6 other Reds of near equal size swimming with my fish. I have indeed seen 2 very large Bull Redfish swimming under my boat near those old Ice House pilings. So perhaps that was what prompted me to write this semi-fictional story. The large Snook my wife caught 25 years ago was only about 1/4 mile south of this same flat. I hooked and fought a 100-pound Tarpon on my fly rod for about 20 minutes a number of years ago on the outside of this same flat. Now sadly to say there is so much fishing pressure in Charlotte Harbor with tournaments nearly every week and more people moving to Southwest Florida. "The Times...they are a-changing".
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