In the evening of the 18th we fished pond X. The Tarpon where finally biting again after temperatures climbed after the coldfront. I fished the pond from sunset untill 21.30 hrs in the evening and had six bites. I jumped about four of them and played three fish for a longer time.
In the end the Tarpon won. Those fish are hard to hook and hold on too.

Yesterday we went fishing to Lovers Key/Carl E. Johnson State park. We fished late in the morning at outgoing tide. They where still busy pumping sand on the south end of the beach so Big Carlos Pass was not accesible by beach.


The inside creeks at low tide at Lovers Key.

We planned to fish New Pass this morning hoping for some Snook. The beach at Lovers Key had been redone and a lot of sand had been put up to widen the beach considerably. We walked the beach but saw no signs of feeding fish or bait.


A view from the sandbar at Lovers Key.

At least bait was moving in and out of New pass as we arrived down there. I did not see any signs of feeding Snook though.
I was fishing a full sinking Orvis depthcharge line with a crease fly. The plan was to get the fly down in the fast flowing currents inside the pass.


Bait in New pass.

It took some time before I got a hit on the fly. I struck high and to my surprise a 5 ft. Tarpon jumped into the air. The fly went in the other direction, like usual. I had not expected Tarpon in the pass but a couple of them where close to the shore at outgoing tide. I had no more hits on the fly all morning. When the tide started to go in again my luck changed. I fished an eddy that formed at the junction of the beach water inflow and water from inside the pass itself. Finally into a Snook.


Snook from New Pass.

So this time it was not the Snookmeister that had the Snook. This memorable event was also witnessed by Diamond Dave who made a surprise visit at the park that morning.
Then minutes later another fish hit. Snook nr. 2 had hit the creasefly and was jumping all over the place. It was loads of fun.


Snook nr.2


On the trusty crease fly.

We fished the pass untill 17.00 hrs that day but no more fish. Even the Snookmeister blanked on this day which was a indication that fishing was not exactly tops. My day was made however. As we headed back to the parking lot we watched some of the local fishermen fishing the inside creeks. A whole array of fish species was hauled in like catfish, jacks, whiting, pinfish and redfish to name a few.

The no-see-ums or swamp angels as they where lovingly called where on the warpath. They where launching a major attack against us. We retreated to the parking lot and covered ourself with insect repellent to keep them at a distance. It almost looked like the little critters where immune to that stuff.

This morning we fished pond X. I jumped a Tarpon and Michael almost got one of the Mayan cichlids on the fly. One thing happened which I feared would come rather sooner than later. Once again somebody told us we could not fish at the place we where at. With a subtle hint that members of the local police force might show up it was obvious that our Tarpon days where over. Once again uptight people had gotten the better of us. We'll, there is always the Gulf of Mexico, freely accessible the last time I was there.