tampa bay fishing charters Archives

The fishing’s still going when the wind gets blowing- Northwest at 20mph winds and LOTS of Redfish

February 23, 2010 By Clay Eavenson

The fishing’s still going when the wind gets blowing- Northwest at 20mph winds and LOTS of Redfish

I got a last minute call from a client for a charter so I looked at the weather and the forecast was for “North at 10 knots” with a negative tide, so I told him “Sure, meet me at 10:00am”. I loaded up the Maverick with the fly rods and spin gear and headed down to the ramp.

My clients arrived, and we took a short ride to the creek to catch a few lady fish and trout while we waited for the tide to drop out a little more. The trout bite was pretty good-if you could get through the lady fish After 30 minutes the tide was getting right so we pushed the skiff up onto a plane and ran over to the Redfish flat on the last part of the out going tide. We started to pole down the flat and right in front of us was a nice school of 50 BIG redfish. My client started to cast an 8wt as we started to close in on the school. He made the cast right in front of the lead fish, started to strip and a redfish started to track the fly, it got 10ft from the boat and spooked. First cast, , nil for 1. We started working down the flat looking for some more fish as the wind started to puff harder.Time to switch up to spinning gear so we pulled

1st Redfish

out a 7’6” G Loomis with a gold flake Exude Dart on a 1/4oz Mission Fishing jig head. We poled down the flat a couple of hundred feet and saw a good school, it looked like 100 plus fish, heading across the white sand next to us but we couldn’t get any shots in with the wind now blowing 20 plus so we decided to stake out one of the routes the redfish take with my Wang Anchor as the tide starts coming in. Within 10 minutes from staking out the redfish school came by and we stuck a nice 28 incher that came to the boat in a few minutes. And the wind blew some more. We snapped a photo or two and released that nice Redfish. And the wind blew even more. We stuck a double and got them to the boat for a quick photo and release, and by now we could not stay staked out with the wind howling so we went up into one of the creeks to chase a few more trout and then we decided to call it a day and headed back to the ramp.

Capt. Jim Lemke

(813) 917-4989

www.flyfishingtampa.com

Tampa Bonefish Special

February 21, 2010 By Clay Eavenson

Tampabay Fly of the month February

This is a fly that was designed by Pat Dunlap & tied by Ron Cavalier.

I call it the Tampa Bonefish Special

In Tampa Bay I use this fly as my number one go to Redfish fly for those spooky tailing reds (aka Tampa Bonefish). I will help you all with the step by step tying instructions for this great easy fly.

List of materials are:
Hook: Gamakatsu SL45 Bonefish Hook, size 6-8-10.
Thread: Clear Ultra Fine Mono.
Body and Shellback: Root Beer, Orange, Tan, White or Gray Krystal Flash.
Eyes: Small or Medium Black Mono.
Legs: CCT Crtystal Tri-Lobal, Pearl, Orange, Tan or Gray in 3/4″ material length.

Tampa Bonefish Special Tying Sequence:

tampa bonefish

Step 1
• Wrap a mono base on the hook from eye to bend.

tampa bonefish

Step 2 Place about 20 to 30 strands of Krystal Flash on top of the hook, allowing it to hang over the eye of the hook about 2” or so and tie down from eye to bend of hook, make sure you leave about 1” in front of the bend of the hook to simulate a mouth.

Step 3 Tie on a pair of mono eyes over the bend of the hook.

Step 4
Tie down a piece of CCT Crystal Tri-Lobal along the shank of the hook and make one or two wraps of the Tri-Lobal over the eyes, criss crossing them, tie off Tri-Lobal just behind the eyes and advance mono thread to eye of the hook.

Step 5
Wrap Tri-Lobal around the shank of the hook to simulate legs until you reach the eye of the hook and then tie off, but leave the bobbin hanging.

Step 6
Trim and materials sticking up in the air and now bend the Krystal Flash back along the top of the hook and between the eyes, allowing it to stick out in front by at least 1” and tie off at the eye of the hook to hold material down and whip finish.
Super Glue the Shell back down and place a drop between the eyes and on the back thread.

This is what it should look like.

I’ve tied many of these for Captain Jim Lemke and he’s caught many redfish on this fly. This fly will work great for Redfish, Bonefish, Snook, and Baby Tarpon.
Capt. Jim Lemke
(813) 917-4989 cell
[email protected]
www.flyfishingtampa.com

Best Fisherman on Tampabay

February 6, 2010 By Clay Eavenson

Best Fisherman on Tampabay

You ask your self from the title “Best Fisherman on Tampabay” man this guide is ring his bell but it’s not me. It is an Osprey that flew around us staking the redfish just like me.

Best Fisherman on Tampabay

I was so surprised that this Osprey was on the same school of over slot Redfish that I was. I told my client on the bow to throw at 1clock 30 feet and at the same time this Osprey starts to dive down at the same time my client missed a fish and so did the Osprey I jumped down off the platform and grabbed my Nikon camera and the Osprey came down on a another fish and nailed it

Best Fisherman on Tampabay

as I was snapping away the Osprey could not get out of the water because the fish was to big. He finally started to fly off with this big redfish in his talons and the tail of the redfish dragging in the water.

Best Fisherman on Tampabay

It was one of my greatest things I have seen in all my years of guiding and yes we did boat 2 big redfish that day.

Guides Day Off Redfish Trip on Fly

February 6, 2010 By Clay Eavenson

I got a call from a friend of mine about a nice herd of non molested Redfish in the Tampabay area so I made a phone call to my buddy Capt. Clay said when was the last time you picked up a fly rod. Well I told him to meet me at the ramp at 7:00AM and I’ll give you a few lessons. He said great and I was in the water at 7:00AM and a little while latter we pulled up on the flat with no one around and it just looked to good so I got out my 8wt G Loomis with my Islander Reel and handed it to Clay and said start casting and let me see what I’m in for. I was surprised he did pretty good so I gave him a few pointers so I grabbed the push pole got up on the platform and said get ready we poled up on the flat around a 100 yards and said it looks like my friend was right it looked like about 6 nice schools of Redfish. We got a little closer and got set up for a few cast and I said to him cast to the outside fish what ever you do don’t cast in the herd will you know what happens when you see all those redfish coming at you will he got buck fever and landed in the middle of them we chased them around for 20mins with a few more shots just no takers so we moved on to find those other herds will we didn’t have to go to far and it looked like a few of those Redfish schools joined up so I got set up on them and it looked like around 200 fish and told Clay don’t screw this up and he made a perfect cast right in front of the lead fish and striped it a few time and he got ate fish on will about 10 seconds later he came unbuttoned o-will. The good thing the school moved 50 feet to the left and took one more shot at them and had a few followers and no takers but I guess it was just not Clay’s day for his first Redfish on fly. I asked him how many Redfish he saw he turned to me and said their must be around 300 and I must have had 50 shots at them but I just sucked today so we poled off the flat before we got busted by a passer by so I asked him if he wanted to check a few more spots on the way back to the ramp he said sure so we made a few stops but they all had a few boats on them so we just called it a day and went back to the ramp.
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