ANGLING ON THE FLY: Fishing Report: Tarpon Cay Lodge (Aug. 17

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Fishing Report: Tarpon Cay Lodge (Aug. 17 - 19, 2009)

Bob Giannoni displaying one of many nice baby Tarpon landed at Tarpon Cay Lodge...

This week, a few good friends and customers of Angling On The Fly are fishing with me at Tarpon Cay Lodge. We are experiencing very unseasonal winds in the Yucatan this summer. Normally, the months of July through September experience very little wind or none at all. To explain, this year´s summer season has seen an unusual lack of rain in what normally is the rainy season. And with rain, comes minimal or no wind conditions. Without the rainy season arriving yet, the conditions are clear with strong afternoon winds... almost like spring weather patterns. The locals say that it is quite a strange summer season and they are all waiting for the rain to come. As I write, there are a few thunderheads building in the distance in the inland direction... for our fishing, we are hoping that this storm will bring calmer conditions so that we may pursue the larger Tarpon off-shore... our fingers are crossed.

Now, I don´t want to paint a bleak picture of the fishing here this week. Despite the windy conditions, we are still experiencing stellar fishing sessions for baby Tarpon on the flats and around the mangroves. This season, the baby Tarpon seem to be much larger than average with some being jumped in the 12 - 15+ pound range. And again, the fishery is showing its health with good numbers of schools to be found in many areas around San Felipe.

The hot flies this week are the Puglisi Tarpon Streamer (size 2/0 in orange/yellow or rust orange), SeaDucer (size 1/0 in ginger tied weedless), Haskin's Deep Cover Shrimp (size 1/0), Merriman's Tarpon Toad (size 1/0 in chartreuse), and Haskin's Foxxy Minnow (size 2/0 in blush/tan).

This week, our customer Bill Ninke (Flemington, NJ) fished one of his hand-tied SeaDucers that proved to be the ideal fly to counter some of the fishing conditions encountered this week. The strong wind on some days caused the turtlegrass and other aquatic vegetation to dislodge from the bottom and litter the much of the surface. Bill tied his SeaDucers with a two pronged weed guard and this designed was very effective at keeping the fly "clean" while fishing these conditions. He reported that most of his fish this week was landed on this pattern.

Well, our fishing is complete here at Tarpon Cay Lodge. Tomorrow, we depart for Isla del Sabalo where we will continue to fish for baby Tarpon but in a much different environ. We are looking forward to sight fishing and fishing the extensive rios and lagoons at Isla del Sabalo. We will report back soon! Until then, good fishing to you and Fish On!