Sanibel Island, Florida

I went fishing with my two brother-in-laws James and Patrick and my father-in-law Mike. Dreams of 100+ lb. Tarpon danced in our heads but the winds were strong and our guides suggested against it. While we might have questioned it, they had us landing sea trout, ladyfish and jacks left and right. So... we fish.

We saw a dolphin in the Gulf go after this fish, it would have been a better pic but all i had was my 50mm at the time so... extreme crop it is!

James on Captain Whitney's boat headed out to some flats by Pine Island.

Casting that 8wt into 15 MPH winds was not easy, but we still landed around 8 trout each.

That evening, it poured, we secured Teriayki Hot Wings, to go, or "FLY" from the Lazy Flamingo late at night while playing Texas Hold 'Em with pocket change and cold beers.

Next morning we headed out of our campground and headed to Blind Pass between Captiva and Sanibel.

Below might be my favorite part of the trip. Small section behind Blind Pass we walked out and fished for maybe an hour. Didn't catch a thing, Mike shuffled back to land early but it was pretty quiet and just gorgeous.

Blind Pass from the Sanibel side.

So that night we decide to head out to the Gulf from our campground and see about casting to Snook in the calm surf. It was low tide and a 10 minute walk. Pat and I headed out early with Mike and James bringing up the rear. James had my camera with him. Pat and I are standing ankle deep blind casting, really not knowing what the hell we were doing, when I hear James yelling for us.

10 minutes earlier Mike casted into a small drainage-like ditch on the campground and hooked into a Tarpon! Really? Holy Crap! We ran back and saw a few more grabbing small baitfish but nothing, plus as you can see above it was dark. Photo below by James and in my opinion, awesome.

The next morning we arose early and hit the ditch. I jumped one that hit so hard my heart rate went up double, instantly. Pat had one hit his fly as well but within an hour there was nothing. Grrrr! So after that we headed to Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge to fish along it's road. It is kind of a haven for wildlife photographers, everywhere you turned there were 400mm and 800mm lenses.

Lastly before packing up we headed back to "The Ditch" and the only thing we saw was this Alligator or Crocodile, can never remember which is which.

Thanks to Maggie and Steve for the feast on Wednesday night, it was awesome! Thanks to the fellow at Norm Ziegler's Fly Shop for the insight. Thanks to Capt Whitney and Capt Eric for guiding us into a bunch of fish, although next time, we go for the Tarpon no matter what. Most importantly thanks to Mike for a great trip and to Mike Pat and James for the awesome times!