January/Febuary Fishing Report

This January/February was about as cookie cutter of a winter fly fishing experience as you can get. Warm weather, followed by harsh cold fronts, followed by more of the same is typical for winter time on the west coast of Florida. Albeit the cold fronts were a little harsher than in years past.

Snook Fishing:

Snook spent a large amount of the last two months pretty stressed out. Temps touched the low 30s twice over the last month on fronts. Snook largely shelter in deeper water and only float up with good sunshine on warming trends between the fronts. Last year provided stellar conditions, especially in the month of February for laid up snook. A shoreline or edge near deeper water, sunshine, with a good incoming tide will provide good opportunities for a big winter time snook. We just have been a little too cold to really experience these good conditions. The last few days of February and into early march look great for these conditions, I expect a few good opportunities at big laid up snook in the coming weeks. Winter time fly fishing opportunities for snook rely on these conditions. When you get them, you better be looking.

Many were worried about fish kills, and while some vulnerable fish did die with the extreme cold weather, there were not large fish kills across the west coast of Florida that I’m aware of. I know of a few areas where fish died – places you’d expect to see dead fish on extreme cold if they were there – and I also saw very happy fish near springs immediately following the extreme cold. Largely I think our snook population will be fine.

Redfish

Red fishing was as good as I ever seen it. I have a theory that our redfish handle the cold better than just about any other gamefish in our area. I think they take advantage of cold shocked bait and actively feed on it through the weather. I often see them actively feeding on the cold days and this year was no different. One of our best days in the winter fly fishing was immediately following the most extreme front of the winter. We caught double digit redfish tailing and working on a shallow flat with air temps still in the 30s. Look for redfish in shallow areas on those cold days and you’ll find them doing their thing.

Speckled Trout

The speckled trout seemed to struggle with the cold more so this year than others. We did well with them early in the winter. But the fishing seemed to trail off as the fronts got more extreme. We witnessed large schools of fish up shallow swimming. But getting them to bite or feed in those situations was very rare. As it’s been warming, they have gotten back to feeding. But fishing fish on the edges of the large schools has been where we’ve seen success. Once the fish are on to you, we’ve observed a noticeable change in behavior throughout the school and it’s best to leave them alone and move on after a couple fish.

Some of the best winter time fly fishing is coming up. I also have a few great tide days open in my tarpon season. If you’re interested in either give me a shout!