Florida: Dolphins & Seatrout
As I said in my last post, I went out today with friend Ray on another Chamber of Commerce day here in sunny/warm Florida. Ray had not been out for a month or so due to going back to Buffalo for the holiday and to a recent death in the family, so he was ready for action…
We again had very friendly and playful dolphins that seemed to follow us around half the day. They spook the fish some for sure, but it’s so neat to have them frolicking close to the boat we don’t really mind all that much. I tried to get a decent picture today to share with you, but this was the best I could do with my camera. This guy was abaout 30 feet from the boat:
We had another superb day catching trout, probably 35 fish between 8AM and 2PM, but somehow Ray always manages to get the big one on me. He was half-heartedly casting a completely chewed up Clouser Minnow that had about 5 strands of bucktail left on it, when the nicest trout of the day whacked it in 2 feet of water as we were drifting up onto a shallow sandbar. He’d been using the same fly all day, and had even used it the last time we went out. I probably had tried 5 different flies in the same time. I did manage a lot of nice fish, and in fact out counted him on the day, but this beauty in the picture below was terrific. If it looks a bit thin, it’s partly the camera angle and partly that we think it was a spawned out female. Still, at 24” and 3.5 pounds, a fine sea trout.
