Busman's Holiday

my favorite sunset shot

What does a fishing guide do when he has too much time off? Well he does what he loves, he goes fishing.
My wife Cyd joined me on a camping trip this past weekend. We tied a canoe onto my skiff along with our trusty Fox Sport Fishing Trek travel rods and our Diablo spinning reels, a tent, some supplies and we headed across Florida Bay headed for Cape Sable over on the mainland in Everglades National Park. We stopped at the mouth of one of the creeks that is posted with a sign saying "no motors allowed". There we unloaded the canoe and put together our rods and reels and headed up the creek. It has been really cold for south Florida and the air temp was in the 50's F. And the water temp was 59F. The first thing that got our attention was the Crocodile's. It was just a little scary paddling past at least 20 of them in the first stretch. I think they were gathered up because of the cold weather. Fortunately our crocs are pretty timid compared to the species in Africa and Australia.

packed up and ready for adventure

plenty of Crocs around

We saw baby Tarpon rolling and I released 3 of them. Great fun. We released a lot of Snook and Seatrout and numerous Ladyfish and Crevalle Jacks. A great start. At 3 pm we loaded the canoe back on my skiff and headed on to middle cape sable beach and set up our tent. With a nice breeze out of the north we had a bug free evening.

5 Tarpon were released

Crevalle Jack

Cyd admires her Snook

Cyd caught the largest Redfish on a
FOX Rage light tackle rod and Diablo 350 reel

the smile says it all

busman's holiday for me

On day 2 we went to another creek and paddled for a mile or so before fishing. We were not finding much so kept on going and found the entrance to a large bay. Here was the honey hole we had been looking for. All the Redfish and Snook you wanted to catch and release. What  a blast.  We did some more exploring and found 2 more similar spots. On the way back out Cyd released 2 Tarpon giving her a double backcountry slam. Snook, Redfish and Tarpon oh my.

sunrise at cape sable

on day 2 we paddled way in and found a hole full of Redfish

Bonefish Trek 4 piece travel rod and Diablo 350 spinning reels
are super tough outfits that get the job done

just another Snook

Sheepshead

the fishing was amazing

Our Diablo 350 spinning reels performed flawlessly as did our Bonefish Trek rods. Thanks for making such great travel easy tackle Fox Sport Fishing.

does it get any better than this

Back at camp the wind died off and it got slick calm. An incredible sunset . We had to get a fire going because the mosquitos and no-seeums came out of the woods and swarmed us. With wood smoke and deet we survived but camping in the Everglades is not for everyone.

Captain Skip Nielsen