We?re entering a great time of year to fish. The fish are hungry, the days comfortable and the action is usually pretty good.

I recently fished two days with my good friend, Capt. Pete Greenan. We were preparing for and fishing in the Mangrove Coast Fly Fishers/Coastal Conservation Association fourth annual Fall Fly Fishing Challenge, an event we?ve both done well in.

During our pre-fishing day, we caught a number of spotted seatrout and redfish in Whidden Creek off Gasparilla Sound and Bull Bay. We hooked and lost one snook.

On tournament day, I caught a spotted seatrout and a snook within five minutes. That gave me the next four hours to catch a redfish.

Overall champion goes to the anglers with the most total inches of a single redfish, single trout and single snook.

I never could get the red ? although we certainly had our chances.

Pete was able to scratch out a slam, but his redfish was on the small side and so was his slam.

Didn?t matter: We had a great time as always.

On Nov. 2, I fished Chris Kean of Lakewood Ranch and his son, Wesley, a 15-year-old sophomore at the Out-of-Door Academy. They had a decent day, catching spotted seatrout, redfish, snook and ladyfish. They used Gulp Shrimp on light jig heads.

We fish the channel going into Buttonwood Harbor on the west side of Sarasota. All of the fish are staging on the edges of the channel at low tide.

Freshwater fishing is beginning to kick into high gear. I?ve been fishing Lake Manatee and doing well on largemouth bass, bluegill, shellcracker and channel catfish. Most of my fish have been caught on popping bugs and No. 10 bead-head nymphs under a strike indicator.

Lake Manatee offers really good action most of the time. Soon, speckled perch will begin cooperating. We usually encounter schooling bass in the old river channel.

We?ll start heading for The Everglades as soon as the water level goes down. That concentrates the fish and makes for exciting action.

In The Everglades, we target largemouth bass, oscar, Mayan cichlids, bluegill and other panfish.

Catches of 100 fish aren?t rare.

Recently, I was added to the Native Watercraft Guides Program and have added a Native Ultimate 14.5 to my fleet. I now have four kayaks and can accommodate three anglers.


Whidden Creek redfish:



White pelicans:



Wesley Kean's first snook: