November Fishing Report For Marathon

Good food, family coming in town, and great fishing is what we all here in South Florida look forward to around this time of year.  The heat is no longer an issue like it has been over the last few months.  We have been seing temperatures between 60-82 degrees.  This cooling trend will start to make a lot of the bigger Snook hanging out in the deeper gulf waters start to migrate back into the creeks.  The mullet have already shown up in huge numbers meaning there will be plenty to eat for these big snook and even large resident Tarpon in the backcountry.

Seasoned anglers and veteran weekend warriors know that over the next several months weather will dictate what they are able to do on the water.  For example, on a cold windy day fishing open water flats won’t be as productive as fishing more protected waters such as the Everglades.  We save our typical sightfishing / poling the flats days to the really nice calmer days just before the next cold front is approaching.  During these nicer days we can often get into some really good Tarpon fishing as well on Fly and Spin in the backcountry of the Everglades.  Or if its Bonefish and Permit that’s on your mind these nicer days are good for that too in the Marathon fishing grounds of Biscayne Bay and anywhere in the Florida Keys.

During the begining of November I spent some time fishing around my home in the Lower Keys targeting Permit and Bonefish.  On the warmer days blowing 10-15 with good visibiliy we often had good luck locating Permit up on the flats.  We’ve generally been seeing a lot of singles and doubles at a time which is less numbers than we would like but the fish are larger than the average which is great when we are lucky enough to hook up.  There have also been a whole lot of large Jack Crevailles and Barracuda’s up on the flats that can be fun even on the poorest of weather days as Del and his wife found out in Key West at the beging of the month.  When the winds picked up a bit I chose to launch out of Islamorada and headed across the bay towards Flamingo and had a lot of luck targeting Snook, Redfish, and even a few really nice Black Drum.  One the colder days, I generally use live bait such as Shrimp or even Pilchards and fish the “ditches” or channels around the islands.  On the warmer days, I’ve been using a lot of Rapala X-Raps on light tackle spinning rods (10lb) working the shorelines and mangrove branches.  When the tide is just right I’ve even had a lot of sucess in the early morning hours throwing Rapala Skitterwalks up on the flats for Snook and Redfish.  The main thing I look for in these situation is bait.  If there is food up on the flats 9 times out of 10 your going to find someone there ready to eat them.

Thanks for viewing I’m
Miami Fishing Charter Captain Rich Smith