[J.A. Veil]

I arrived home on Sunday from a 23-day fishing trip in Florida. I drove my van for 3,448 miles and fished on 19 consecutive days. I brought my own kayak with me. I fished with kayak guides on 9 days and used my own kayak on the other 10 days. During the trip, I caught 174 fish of 22 different species. Fish of 5 species were 25” or above; 3 of them were 30” or longer. The longest was a 72” lemon shark. I caught two new-to-me species (bandtail pufferfish and tripletail) and set new personal bests for 8 other species.

I prepared a detailed trip report that goes day-by-day to describe where and how I fished, as well as the species I caught. Anyone interested in reading this report can find it on Google Drive at road trip report feb-march 2023.pdf. From there you can read it or download it. If you are uncomfortable using Google Drive, send me a message with your email address, and I can forward a copy to you.

A few of the larger fish are shown below.

 

[andypat]

Hooked on FL.! Very good John. I enjoyed your whole trip. Made me feel at home. Thanks!

 

[John Smith_inFL]

Awsome reports, John - I followed all of your posts.
We drove over to Ozello today (in the Homosassa area) and it was cold and blustery. Not a good day for yakking at all. I was going to go out with my brother that lives there as he is hooked on yakking the lagoons. You were fortunate to have some great days. Thanks for sharing your journey.

 

[J.A. Veil]

Ozello looks really pretty for kayak fishing. On previous trips, I spent four different days fishing there with a kayak guide. We did not do well on any of those trips, so I took it off my destination list.

 

[andypat]

John, Have you ever kayak fished the Tampa, Saint Pet, Venice area.? Some very good guides and very good fishing in that area.

 

[J.A. Veil]

John, Have you ever kayak fished the Tampa, Saint Pet, Venice area.? Some very good guides and very good fishing in that area.

I fished 148 trips with kayak guide Neil Taylor in the Tampa Bay region between 2013 and 2020. Neil no longer lives there. I fished three days in the Tampa Bay region on last weeks trip and had some good catches at selected locations. But at other spots, the red tide has put a major damper on fishing in much of that region.

I have not fished much in the stretch south of Tampa Bay to Marco Island. There used to be a lot of good fishing there, but last fall's hurricane plus the worsening red tide, has made it less attractive.

 

[mullet-head]

Great trip brother!!!
Thanks for posting!!!
Mike

 

[andypat]

I fished 148 trips with kayak guide Neil Taylor in the Tampa Bay region between 2013 and 2020. Neil no longer lives there. I fished three days in the Tampa Bay region on last weeks trip and had some good catches at selected locations. But at other spots, the red tide has put a major damper on fishing in much of that region.

I have not fished much in the stretch south of Tampa Bay to Marco Island. There used to be a lot of good fishing there, but last fall's hurricane plus the worsening red tide, has made it less attractive.

We know Taylor. He took over the Capt.Mel fishing site after Capt.Mel died. A lot of us left the site after he took over. And now there is an Old Capt.Mel fishing site.Capt Mel was a nice guy. He was always at tournaments/picnics.

 

[ACG]

John,
Nice report. i just got back from 10 day fishing via kayak in the 10,000 Islands / Chololoskee Island area. All new to me, but I went with a couple friends who knew what they were doing and learned from them. the variety of fish there is amazing…. i caught 8 species, and as a group we caught 12 or 13 species using soft plastics or clouser flies. a few caught a shrimp the last day there.

Winds were the biggest influencer to where we fished. Chokoloskee Bay was whipped to white caps somedays even the powerboats remained docked. We found sheltered locations like tidal rivers remained fishable. Looking forward to trying it again next year.

The species we caught included spotted sea trout, redfish, ladyfish, tarpon, mayan childid, gar, hardhead catfish, sail catfish, sheepshead, southern sting ray, snook, an African chichid.

Here is a picture of large snook that wrapped line on Mangrove roots. We managed to net it, but lost an even larger one when 30 lb test leader frayed on barnacales.

 

[ACG]

Read your 53 page report John; nicely written and full of good tips on where how to fish the coastal shallows from a kayak. Thanks for writing it.
Andy

 

[andypat]

Cool picture! Thanks for the report.