Fun On Light Tackle

The last couple days it has been Fall like weather. I've had to wear a fleece vest while moving about in the boat. What a nice change after a long hot summer. But the fishing changes with the seasons. Now we are starting to see less Tarpon in the bay but the annual run of Spanish Mackerel is beginning. These light tackle gamesters provide my bread and butter fishing through January. Along with the mackerel are Bluefish, Ladyfish and Seatrout. With the Mackerel come the Spinner Sharks.

Mangrove Snapper are not as plentiful in the bay but will be very common on the patch reefs in weeks to come along with Groupers.

I had Al Rissan and Bill Brosnan for the day and they requested dinner for 20 people. Quite a tall order. We did it though with Yellowtail, Mutton and Mangrove Snapper. Along with Porgy and a couple keeper Red Grouper. A fun day.

Al Rissan with a Mutton Snapper.
Fox Bonefish Trek rod and Diablo 350 spinning reel.

Al with a Yellowtail and Bill Brosnan with a Red Grouper
also landed on the Bonefish Trek, Diablo 350 combo

The next day I had the father son team of Pete and Pete Aiello. It started out choppy and cool and we had to run the edges of the banks to stay dry.

As the day went on it became slick calm.

Using Bonefish Trek and Rage Ultralight rods paired with Diablo 350 reels and 10lb Horizon (Fox) braid we fished 4 spots in the bay.

Action action!

Diablo 350 reels and Fox Rage ultralight and
Bonefish Trek rods were perfect for a day of action fishing

Pete with a fine Spanish

Red Grouper

young Pete with a Black Grouper

Pete Sr. with a Gag Grouper

The Seatrout bite was the best. We kept a few of those for dinner along with 10 Mangrove Snapper. Also caught were 11 Spanish Mackerel, 2 Bluefish, too many Ladyfish to count and a number of small Grouper. All fun on the light tackle.

Captain Skip Nielsen

Liverpool angler scores a Grand Slam while fishing in the Keys

Anglers Bernard and Paul Pielow are visiting Islamorada this week. They come to the Keys to fish a couple times a year. This past Thursday we castnetted live mullet and headed towards Cape Sable to catch some big fish. The request was for some sore arms and hopefully a Goliath Grouper.


I brought along the Fox Trek XT Boat Rods with EOS conventional reels loaded up with 65lb Horizon Braid line. And a few lighter rods including the Sailfish 8' Trek with a Diablo 750 spinnng reel and a couple Permit Trek rods fitted with Diablo 550 reels.

Paul and Bernard caught and released 5 Goliath Groupers
using EOS Fox reels and XT Trek Boat Rods

As we started fishing the Nurse Sharks found us first. Then a couple of large Stingrays. But then the Goliaths started biting. The boys managed 5 to the boat for release. One was around 130 lbs. In between Paul caught a beauty of a Snook on a live mullet.

Goliath Grouper mug shot

Big snook for Paul using a
Diablo 750 spinning reel and Sailfish Trek rod

We tried another channel which had been full of Tarpon last week and Paul caught and released an estimated 65lber. Lots of jumps and a great battle on the Permit Trek/Diablo 550 combo. Now Paul had two out of 3 species.

looking at Paul battle this Tarpon the Permit Trek rod does
not look like a 4 piece travel rod. Fantastic piece of kit

Gulping air to battle on

Paul uses the Diablo 550 paired with a
Permit Trek rod to catch a 60lb Tarpon

We needed a Redfish. It was dead low tide so I headed to a spot where the fish would be off the flats and holding waiting for the tide to turn. In 30 minutes of fishing Bernard kept getting the Redfish. He caught 4 before Paul finally caught his. A west coast Florida Grand Slam or what we call a backcountry slam was had by Paul. A notarized form will be submitted to the IGFA and Paul will recieve a very nice award!   Congrads Paul.

Bernard Pielow with a nice Redfish

Paul Pielow caught this Redfish to
complete a West Florida Grand Slam.

The next day we fished some creeks but the recent heavy rains had shut the fishing down. We ran back towards Islamorada and fished the channels with live pilchards hoping for a Tarpon. We did see a few rolling but had to settle for a nice Red Grouper for dinner. Bernard caught the grouper on a Bonefish Trek/Diablo 350 combo with 10lb Horizon braid. I was pretty impressed as the fish rocked up 2 times and Bernard waited him out and got him to the cooler. Made a great dinner. After that we chummed with live pilchards and a mob of Crevalle Jacks in the 5 to 10lb range found us and provided some great action.

Bernard Pielow with a great light t
ackle catch of a Red Grouper

Crevalle Jacks came to our live pilchard chum

Captain Skip Nielsen

30 Minute Battle For First Ever Tarpon

On Friday Peter Rose and Barry Cohen fished with me. Neither had ever landed a Tarpon and really wanted to give it a try. It is not prime Tarpon season but the winds were down and conditons looked good. We were able to castnet a couple dozen live mullet for bait. I decided our best bet would be near Cape Sable which is quite a long boat ride. But it was worth it. Within 10 minutes after lines in Peter hooked up. Very exciting fishing with live mullet as the mullet sidesteps the Tarpon as he tries to gulp it down. Peter's battle lasted a good 30 minutes.

Peter Rose uses the Fox Permit Trek rod and
Diablo 550 reel to tame his first ever Tarpon

Pete's First Tarpon

Peter's Tarpon estimated at 75lbs

In between Tarpon bites we had quite a bit of action from agressive Blacktip Sharks. These fish often jump and do wild spins. We fought several of these on the light Permit Trek rods matched with Diablo 550 spinning reels. We use 30lb Horizon Fox braid line so we can put some heat on them and get them in. It amazes me how the Permit Trek rods hold up under the extreme pressue we put them through.

we used Fox Diablo 350 spinning reels
and Ultralight Rage rods for action fishing

Well next it was Barry Cohen's turn. He caught a nice Tarpon of 40lbs that put on a wild jumping show. We were able to take DNA samples from both fish for research.

Barry Cohen using the Permit Trek rod
and Diablo 550 spinning reel for his jumping Tarpon

This Tarpon put on a show

Permit Trek rod is taking some serious punishment

Barry Cohen  poses with his first ever Tarpon

Later we tried another area and saw lots of Tarpon but only managed one bite which threw the bait.
To finish we stopped at a place called First National Bank. With an incoming tide now and Ballyhoo getting showered by fishy predators we spent an action packed hour catching a little of everything.

Ladyfish,Seatrout,Spanish Mackerel,Mangrove Snappers, and of course catfish. We had a big shark take a ladyfish at the boat as we were getting ready to release it. A fun ending to a great day.

Captain Skip Nielsen

Great To Be Back!

Fishing report for October 14th, 2011
It sure is good to be back home in Islamorada. Got my boat back in the water last night. Early morning was slick calm.

Cyd Nielsen and Rick Pepper show off a pair of redfish

I could not wait to go fishing. My wife Cyd and good friend Rick Pepper and I headed back to Florida Bay to see what we could find. Baitfish were everywhere. Mullet, pilchards, ballyhoo were all in the same channel just waiting for my castnet.

nice pair of redfish

We fished an incoming tide near Sandy Key. The Redfish bite was on! In two hours of fishing we released 10 fat reds. We kept moving around after catching a couple just to explore all the spots. All but one spot was holding Reds.

Cyd's biggest red of the day

Rick Pepper with his redfish

Those darn catfish!

We had a blast using Fox Bonefish Trek rods matched with Fox Diablo spinning reels. I even got a chance to fish and released a Redfish of about 8 lbs and a couple Crevalle Jacks on my Fox 8 weight flyrod.

Hoping to find a few Tarpon tomorrow.