Flamingo Lagoon, Florida Everglades March 5-8 2010

I travel 11 hours...  ELEVEN friggen hours, to have the remote chance to meet the Saint Luna (From KFS) himself, and view a Dorado in person...  What happens?  Saint Luna decides he is too good for us rabble, and the only Dorado's I see are flushed uneloquently down the commode!

Weather was cold and windy Friday, with the temperatures rising and the winds dying down as the weekend wore on.  I arrive around 2 PM Friday and set up camp with my fishing buddy Murrayfisher (KFS).  The winds are in the 20-25 Knots range, temperature in the 60...felt much colder of course.  We valiantly launch through the mud as the tide rises regardless, and hide behind the mangroves to avoid the whitecaps and biting wind...  

Less than 5 minutes later, the skunk is off with a Ladyfish (AKA:  Poor mans Tarpon) and a Spiny Puffer (First of this species ever caught, not that I was trying, since they are a trash fish) both boated.  The Ladyfish bite was intense, and I caught maybe 6 or 7 of them in about 1/2 hour of fishing, and then added a single small seatrout to the tally.

We paddled back into the campground with about a hour of sunlight to spare, and commenced to telling fish lies and drinking adult bevcerages.  Dinner consisted of sandwiches and hard cider for me, sandwiches and beer for the rest.  

So far so good, no sign of the infamous denizens of the area, the mosquito's....  Ooops, spoke too soon..  Just as the last rays of sunlight are painting the western sky orange and red, they come from the west, million and millions of mosquito's...  A cloud wafting past on the calmer 10 knot winds.....    

They must have come from Key West, ad it appears they were mostly all males mosquitos...  My ankles told me at least one or two was female...  But considering I only got bit twice, and there were a BAZILLION of the bastards, and I am viewed as Filet Mignon to mosquito's, I can safely say that it definately was a gay pride parade f mosquito's.......  Except for the two Fruit Flies who joined the parade and decided to get a drink from my ankles that is...  

Saturday morning found a few more fishermen joining the day, and the winds dropped down to the 10 Knot range, with temps in the high 40's/low 50.s...  Bundled up, we headed out again...  The winds again making us hide among the Mangrove for most of the morning, and reducing the fishing catch to the occasional Ladyfish or small seatrout....  Around noon, the weenies headed in, having to pull their kayaks through about 100 feet of mud...

Three of us stayed out [Myself, Lewis (LConn4 - KFS) and Forrest (FJay - KFS)], and were rewarded for our diligence, as the winds dropped to 2-3 knots, the temperature rose to the high 60's/low 70's, and the fish bite increased dramatically...  For about an hour, seatrout and ladyfish on almost everycast, and I even caught my first Pompano.  We returned to camp around 4 PM, to find several weenies had fled for the weekend, and only three of us were going to be around for the following day.

We returned to find Murray well into his third sixer of beer, LTFireguy (KFS) and Bill  (KFS) standing around telling lies...err fish stories, but smelling strongly of the need to wash in gallons of tomato juice....    The latter two, heading home the next morning, and FJay heading home Saturday night...

That left just LConn, Murray and myself to stay up until about 10 PM telling stories around a campfire, drinking and enjoying the wonderful weather, despite a repeat of the march of the Ghey Mosquito's right at sunset.    Though this time, no Fruit Flies were in attendance as I was not bitten at all.  

Sunday morning found the winds less intense, and the temparautre much warmer...  We broke camp and decided to drive to the Marina to launch, as no one wanted to repeat Murray's trudge from the day before out fish.

At the campsite, we met Jesse (Another camper from El Paso, but without a kayak), and since LConn had an extra kayak, invited him out to join us...

Around noon, having broken camp and set up at the Marina, I headed out first, the others taking for ever to set up and launch, out to the same spot we slew them the day before...  I immediately catch a large Gafftop Catfish....  Yuk.... and two small Jack's, before anyone else gets out there...  Murray then catches his first fish of the weekend, a nice fat 17" seatrout, which he invited home for dinner.

For the next three hours, we caught seatrout after seatrout after seatrout, with the occasional jack and Ladyfish thrown in...  Most of the Seatrout were 14-1/2" long, many were smaller than that, but 5 were harvested on the day.

We returned to the launch around 4 p.m. and packed up and headed out...


Overall, a great weekend for all who stayed and fished...  I wish more had shown up and joined us, and that more had stayed around...

I am looking forward to tasting my first Pompano filet this evening.

As for why no pictures...  I left the Camera on the table here in South Carolina...