Firstly sorry for my blogging inconsistency - it’s been a manic year so far, but anyway now it’s time to get back on track. I’ll do a little Florida round up in a second firstly though, here’s what I’ve been up to since I returned….

CATCHING UP
They say there’s no rest for the wicked and within 24 hours of Jumping off the plane from Florida I was straight into proofing diagrams for my latest RYA book, which I think is going to be called “Boat Angling Explained”. Watch this space!

The three small, waterproof guides – Knots, Rigs and Baits I completed last year are all now for sale and can be found in all good bookstores and on Amazon.co.uk. As is “The Concise Encyclopaedia of Fishing” that I worked on last year with renowned anglers Henry Gilbey, John Bailey and Nick Hart. Thanks to all the kind people who have purchased the books so far and sent me kind comments by email. Ta!

All my new Nikon camera gear has arrived and I’m already back on the road photographing magazine features. I shall be resuming my series “Modern Specimen Fishing” for Total Sea Fishing and I have a new series outlined for Boat Fishing Monthly. I have also photographed and archived a lot of mini features for WSF – some shore marks, some species biology/how to catch features and tons of tackle reviews. Another piece of news is that I have also started doing a basic, instructional, sea fishing series for AnglersNet.co.uk (that’s two of us that have to put up with him now Elton, - Ed) - It looks set to be a busy year with my camera and keyboard!

On the subject of busy, my own Facebook page has now moved home due to my personal page getting a little crowded. My new Facebook page “Salt and Slime” is just about angling - sea, coarse and worldwide. I’m trying to keep it interesting and funky with angling news, reviews, weather forecasts and some previews about what’s up and coming and obviously what I am up to myself. Feel free to join me at www.facebook.com/saltandslime

FLORIDA
After a freezing start in Florida this year, after Easter the weather picked up and so did the fishing; so I’m going to end this blog with a brief Florida round up and a cool little story…

Through April, May and June the Tarpon fishing in the Keys was on fire. Some mornings we hooked over ten Tarpon and I cannot tell you how knackering that is, you can only experience it for yourself. I lost count of how many Tarpon over 100lbs we caught and released, but it was a ridiculous amount. The average Tarpon was much bigger this year (roughly 120-140lbs) although our biggest Tarpon of the year was smaller than last years, but at and estimated 165lbs it was still a beauty! Well done to John O’bank. I try to be honest with my estimations but there’s a lot of fudging goes on. On other boats this fish would have been over 200lbs. I’ll leave that one there!

The shark fishing post Easter was also excellent and better than 2009. We had three nurse sharks that were contenders for the Florida record – well over 200lbs, and the day-to-day Lemon and Bull shark fishing was unbelievable… I have never seen so many monster Lemon sharks as we saw this year. Sharking is always a great way to get your string pulled and catching 200lbs of fish in 3-6ft of water is an awesome experience! Bonefish are a species that I have a soft-spot for. I love their patience testing ability and the sheer speed they take off at!

This year I put a lot of effort into locating new Bonefish marks and I got some great results. Over the spring season we had quite a few and our best morning was three (which is good for an hours fishing). The biggest Bonefish aboard was about 8.5lbs. Again that Bonefish would have been double figures on many other boats!

The highlight this year for me has to be fishing with my good pal and WSF Contributor Andy Rees. It was a bit of an emotional week that started with some sad news, but one that ended with some awesome Tarpon fishing and a spooky surprise.

Last year I had invited Andy to come and join me in the Keys for a week or so and Andy promptly asked if his younger brother Steve could join us too. Of course my answer was “no probs!” I had met Steve last summer whilst Shark fishing from Bude with Andy, and I knew Steve clearly loved fishing as much as his big bro. But not long after we arranged dates, Andy called me to say that Steve had just been diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer, but they wanted to keep high spirited and therefore they were both still planning on coming to Florida this spring. A lot of you probably know that Pancreatic Cancer is not one of the better ones, if there is such a thing, and unfortunately just a few weeks before their planned trip Steve sadly passed away. Steve would have loved to fish for Tarpon in Florida, and I would have understood if Andy wanted to call the trip off, but he didn’t. Andy was adamant that Steve would have wanted him to come to Florida, and that’s what he was going to do. He also felt that he wanted to fish in Steve’s honour and try catch a 100lb plus Tarpon to say his last goodbyes to his younger bro, and instead of coming alone he asked if he could bring his sister Karen to share the experience.

The day came and Karen and Andy arrived, clearly still fragile from the previous few weeks and we set to do some fishing in Steve’s honour and hopefully to catch a ton up Tarpon for him/Andy as a last goodbye. But nothing could have prepared us for what an awesome week it would turn out to be. Each morning we fished for Tarpon and each day, we pushed out into the Gulf to target other species.

On the first morning we hooked a bunch of Tarpon, more than usual, but strangely every one ran half a mile and headed for the local bridge. And after looping through several arches, each one smashed us up! Big 100lb plus Tarpon that do this locals call “veterans” – Tarpon that have been hooked before and know what to do! The next morning the same happened again – we hooked a bundle of Tarpon and each headed for the bridge, after several runs in and out of the arches, every one of them smashed us up. I guess your getting the picture by now so I’ll just say the third and fourth morning were nothing different – more hook-ups than normal, more bridge arches than normal, and more smash-ups than ever before. Our worst, or best Tarpon (whatever you want to call it!) managed to run for over a mile and go in and out of 16 bridge arches (that’s over an hour fighting and following a 100lb fish) before it smashed us up.

Losing Tarpon may sound terrible but they’re renowned for not playing ball and this is all part of the game, but this week was something else! The more we lost, the more frustrating it became – frustration turned into determination and Andy became more hungry to catch a one in memory of his brother! On Andy’s last but one Tarpon trip before he was due to fly home, we hooked a big old mamma, first thing in the morning whilst it was still dark, and instead of heading for the bridge, this one headed out into the gulf and clear water…

After towing the boat around for one and a half miles and well over an hour, I caught a glimpse of her and estimated her around 140-150lbs. She looked tired enough to hand-ball the leader and bring her alongside for the photo we had been seeking, but just as she was six inches from me she threw the hook, thrashed her tail and swam away. Andy was gutted but then we noticed something strange. Many moons ago anglers removed a scale from each Tarpon as a trophy, but this is not common practise today. But there, stuck on the point of Andy’s hook was a Tarpon scale!

Andy initially mentioned he would have loved to have a Tarpon scale, but as I would not remove one purposely, because it’s unfair to the fish, plan B was to try and get a photograph him and a Tarpon instead. How spooky that we should actually end up with the Tarpon trophy of all Tarpon trophies – a monster pearlescent scale to remember his brother by! I wonder if his bro was watching over him? If he was, he sure had a good weeks fishing too! Farewell Steve!

That week Andy and Karen also had some awesome shark fishing with sharks well over 200lbs, as well as some great general fishing for the usual Keys suspects!

Next year we will be offering some different package holidays including guided inshore and offshore, self drive and kayak fishing and a mixture of all three! And we will be using different accommodation too. This includes standard motel rooms, suites and luxury villas. We also have some new guides that will be doing some trips for us – these are some of the best guides in the world at what they do – offshore and inshore. And finally we’re changing the name of our Florida Holiday operation to a name that has serious history for travelling anglers… The Long Key Fishing Club.

The new website will be up and running soon. In the meantime if you want to enquire about our package fishing holidays in the Florida Keys, you can contact me on 08452033474 or by email on info@fishinginflorida.co.uk