Fly and Light Tackle Fishing in the Everglades

I've dedicated a generous part of my career as a fishing guide to exploring the uncharted areas of the Everglades and guiding anglers to snook on fly or light tackle. As a guide and angler, if I had to choose one fish that I could pursue for the rest of my life it would be the snook. The fight of the snook, their beauty, intelligence, and spectacular habitat are some of the reasons for the pursuit.

Sight fishing opportunities for snook abound in the Everglades National Park and are second to none. Snook are almost always found near some kind of structure and will use it every chance they get to show you who's boss. The places I choose to guide for snook are generally best in the early fall to late spring. The labyrinth of shallow sawgrass and mangrove-lined ponds, winding creeks and small bays of the uncharted Everglades are the first areas to warm up after the cold fronts in the fall and early spring. The tea-colored tannin stained water warms up quickly and there is an abundance of aquatic growth providing habitat that insulates and protects baitfish and snook from the colder Winter water temperatures, retaining warmth longer on sunny days.

Wildlife and Access

Covering the southern tip of the Florida and most of Florida Bay, the Everglades National Park contains both temperate and tropical plant communities, including sawgrass prairies, mangrove and cypress swamps, pinelands, and hardwood hammocks, as well as marine and estuarine environments providing some of the best fly and light tackle fishing opportunities found anywhere.

Aside from the Everglades' outstanding and diverse fishing opportunities for species such as tarpon, bonefish, permit, snook and redfish, the park is known for its rich bird life, particularly large wading birds, such as the roseate spoonbill, wood stork, great blue heron and a variety of egrets. Bald eagles, Florida Panthers, eastern diamondback rattlesnakes, also reside in the Everglades. It is also the only place in the world where alligators and American crocodiles exist side by side.

I access the Everglades from several different boat ramps ranging from Key Largo to Long Key, Flamingo, Chokoloskee and Everglades City. If you interested in strictly fishing from Whitewater Bay north, staying near Flamingo would be your best bet, otherwise, all of Florida Bay can be easily accessed from the Upper Keys.