Well, had the opportunity to fish with the GOAT - Capt Bob LeMay. It was his turn to show around his “playground” - Flamingo. We did a Chokoloskee Trip back in the winter, and it just took a while to line up for this adventure.
If any of you have fished with Capt. LeMay, it’s like a Wikipedia on ENP. Every turn, every marker, every channel has a story for him as he’s spent over 25 years guiding in this ecosystem.
He’s a guide of “habit”. Everything is executed in the same way, same adherence to safety, and reading the water.
We started at 0630 on the inside ramp of Flamingo, plan was to head to Shark Area and look for some friends…I was on a “learning” mission, I could care less if we caught fish, but, I was peppering Bob with ? after ? about, why this color, why did we stop here, how do we fish these conditions, why this jig, why this point? Well we had a good day and many friends came aboard…
The Day’s start…he has his routine, just step away, have a smoke, light a cigar, finish your coffee standing on the dock, like many of us, it’s about routine…so, I let him do his launch ritual…“I think he’s done it a few times”
Made our way out of Tarpon Creek and fired up to run North to the Shark.
I will say, his 1988 if I’m not mistake, MA 17 is amazing…lots of forward deck and it crushes the chop…more on this later…
Made our way direct to the shark with Bob at the helm and we got to our first spot and Bob started picking off the snook…
Here is one of a 1/2 dozen that came aboard at one spot…
I picked off 3-4 of about the same size and slightly smaller while Bob was setting up some live lady’s we caught…
The tide slowed down, so we moved into the rivers and we found a few of Bob’s pet Goliath’s he always posts…yep, they were waiting to say hello, and almost on queue, they came aboard…
In the same area, we found a school of trout, and I learned a few new techniques of how to fish for them in this type of ecosystem…
Healthy trout on a Mr. Wiffle and a Bob LeMay jig…we had about another 6-7, with only one keeper, but, stead action with the Jacks and a few cats coming along…
We made our way out into the Gulf to hit some points, but, it was beginning to get a bit windy, and it was really hard to cast into the areas that Bob was directing me…had on one big snook that made an early exit and it was then time to head back by 1pm.
We fishing several new types of water on our way back, and we discussed “why” fish were there, or were not on the return…good learnings for sure…we did find another Goliath that took us for a run into the mangroves and it was a two man job to hand line him out…lots of fun…10 lb Goliath hand over hand to the boat, out of the mangroves (LOL).
The run home got a bit choppy, but, his MA 17 ate it like a champ…
Back to the dock on time to beat most of the traffic…back the FLL.
I highly recommend a day with Capt LeMay…in Flamingo…he’s a true teacher of his craft and loves to talk about it all day…
I’ve been fishing Flamingo since 2003, and I learned more in one day with Bob than I’ve learned on my one in many trips…give him a call…if you’d like to fish Chokoloskee, ping me at 954 258 2878…my website is:
Until the next time…
DC
