Its 4 am, and throughout the west coast of Florida a dedicated group of kayak anglers awake with eager anticipation of the day to come. They have thought of nothing else all winter. Obsessed with only one thing, big fish off the beach, they drag themselves out of bed, grab some coffee, the kayak and gear and head out the door. Its Tarpon season.

ICAST this year showcased some pretty cool new products utilizing technology never seen before in the fishing industry.  As a kayak angler I was very excited to check out some of the new rods and reels coming to the market soon. Daiwa has created a revolutionary new product called the T3 Baitcasting Reels.  These reels utilize a new T-Wing and Magforce 3D system, which promise to create longer casting opportunities with a more advanced backlash control.

Bob Bramblet wins the Tarpon Fever Classic Kayak Fishing Tournament in Sarasota Florida. His Spotted Sea Trout, Redfish, and Tarpon not only won him the Tarpon Fever Classic but also put him in first place in the kayak fishing series. William Lusk took second place and Will Mallet, Bramblet’s partner was awarded third. For all the details on the Tarpon Fever Classic event check out the below press release.

In South West Florida spring kayak fishing has been at its best. There are endless options in my region. I have been finding fish on the flats, bridges, beaches and dock lights at night. The Snook have been eating flies very well. The fly of choice has been the Clouser in a Chartreuse/White pattern. When fishing the dock lights for these line siders I prefer to use a Temple Fork Outfitters TICRX Rod in a 9WT which allows the angler to put good pressure on the fish to keep the fish out of the structure.

Doing my typical interweb searching last night had me land on on of our newest YakAngler's blog www.robchoi-fishing.blogspot.com.  Checking out his site I couldn't help but be reminded of another famous Chesapeake Bay kayak angler Kayak Kevin.  I'm not sure how he'd feel about the comparison but it could be worse...  I could have said he reminded me of myself!  Enough babble check out this latest compilation video!

Our main target species for this trip was to be Tarpon, the big migratory fish show up this time of year, so this morning we were on the hunt for them. Kind of an eerie morning with some sea fog just out on the outer coast. We did see some big fish early, but they were hard to pattern as they would bust bait in one area then move on. They never really seemed to hang in one area to long. A bit later as the tide dropped some more, we came across an area that I would describe as a bowl. It was a deeper hole with water moving through it.

Ben Ciliberto is a great client of mine. He lives in Pennsylvania and came down a few months after starting our own business. He expressed interest in learning how to kayak fish. He flew in on a Wednesday morning...booked us for Wednesday afternoon, Thursday, and Friday morning...he flew back Friday afternoon. A great customer. His trip didn't yield too much success due to the weather, but he had a great time regardless and understood we weren't in control of the fishing. He had his shots, just couldn't connect on a nice fish. He ended up with a few smaller fish, but a well below average couple, three days.

First let me apologize, it’s been way to long since my last report.  Work, travel, weather have all conspired against me, keeping me off the water.  Did I mention the weather?  The dog days of summer are fully here. Oppressive heat and humidity are at a point where you just don’t feel like going out of the house. But if you’re like me, the call of the water is just too strong.  So you load up the kayak and off you go.
Sun rise over Tampa Bay.

As we say goodbye to July all we can do is hope that August brings us more rain. The water levels are down in all the Intercoastal waterways and with that it makes finding fish on the flats a little harder, so with that I am going to focus this report on finding fish in deeper water.

Well it's June and on the Space Coast of Florida that means it's time to hit the beaches!! So I will start off with my offshore report: This time of year the bait pods show up in huge numbers just outside the breakers of all of our local beaches. This is the best time to take your kayak offshore and look for any one of the twenty plus species of game fish that will be feeding on the glass minnows, threadfins, sardines, mullet, and porgies that make up the bait balls.