Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Night Kayak Fishing in SW Florida

Well, it has been a while since I've wet a line and I had to settle for the salt rather than my favorite cold mountain streams, but I was at Marco Island, Florida and did manage to get out and fish a little.

We mainly fished the 10,000 Islands area and the Everglades by flats boat. We managed some juvenile snook and redfish as well as quite a few lady fish, pompano and sea trout. The best fish we managed during our day trips were in the 20-25 inch range with the larger lady fish putting up the best fight.

That was until I took the kayak out in the middle of the night. It seems like pretty much every house on Marco is on the water and most of them have these great lights pointed right at the water...So I decided to try to sneak up on some fish.

Here is the front of the kayak heading out into the night...


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A nice looking dock light...

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With someone home...

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This guy gave me a great fight and pulled me around a bit. Keeping the larger snook from getting under the dock was a bit of a challenge from the kayak and I lost a fish for every one I managed to get to the kayak. Night kayak fishing is a great way to sight-fish to these large snook--these guys look like gators in the green water.