Southwest Florida kayak angler, Jim Van Pelt is widely known for some amazing catches of a variety of fish throughout Florida from redfish to tarpon to peacock bass, and took the time to share with Yak Outlaws an afternoon tale of chasing some Saturday Night Tailers through his blog, Kayak Fish Southwest Florida, with fellow angler Tim Jones. We’re definitely interested in fishing these waters now and chasing some tailing redfish now!
Amazing shot of a redfish in SW Florida by Tim Jones.
6pm rolls around and as we sit on the dock at Tim’s house, we are coming up with every possible excuse to not paddle out and search for redfish. It’s too windy, it’s too hot, the tides are wrong. We both knew that none of those were good excuses, the conditions were exactly the same as every day before and we had found our big school of tailers every day. Finally we took a quick spray down with the hose to try and combat the 100 degree temperatures and made the paddle south. As we came upon the flats the wind started to lay down and the tails started to pop up.
Tim was on a mission. After 2 days he was determined to get one on fly. I went left to chase some tails and Tim went right. I managed only a few casts before hearing Tim shout that he had one on. We quickly snapped a few photos and got ready for a big school of redfish that was making its way to us.
Tim Jones with a beautiful SW Florida redfish on fly.
Tim made a deadly accurate cast and after only a second of stripping line he was hooked up to his 2nd redfish in under 10 minutes. After a few minutes he landed a gorgeous redfish that seemed to have previously done battle with a boat prop.
Redfish caught by Tim Jones who’s had better days.
We fished and watched for another hour or so before the sun finally disappeared behind the mangroves. On our way back Tim managed a nice snook to mix things up a little bit.
Tim Jones with a stud snook caught in SW Florida.
With all the quality fish on the flats right now, one thing is clear. As the temperatures will start to cool in the fall, the fishing in SWFL is definitely heating up.
A huge thanks to Jim Van Pelt and Tim Jones for sharing their tale of some epic fishing. If you have a story that you’d like to share, shoot it over to us.
Extreme Kayak Fishing Summer Slam, Part II Next Post:
Stalking Redfish
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