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Pops and I (and no, I don't call him that) headed down to Flamingo today. I wanted to get in some ocean fishing and the weather was supposed to be spotty, so Flamingo left us several inshore (lakes) choices if the weather was bad upon arrival. It ended up being dead calm, and we paddled out at about 7:30 am.

We hit Joe Kemp Key first where I hooked my redfish the last time. I put on the larger size in a "fire tiger" (a.k.a. greenback or mackerel) pattern and threw it against the mangroves. I remembered that last time I threw it at a 45° angle, and postulated that this might keep the lure in the strike zone longer, and did the same this time. I'd throw it out and reel at varying speeds on the retrieve (but no twitching). After about 20 minutes on the right third of the key (right as you paddle towards it from shore, anyway), I hooked up with something that proceeded to pull me first into the mangroves and then away from them.

After a few minutes, I pulled a nice fat upper-slot (later measurement: 25", 8.3 lbs) redfish out. He was hooked badly - he swallowed the whole damn plug and was bleeding a fair amount. Anything more than a single drop is "a fair amount" in my book. Anyway, we decided to keep him. I threw him in my Kayak Koffin with my sandwiches, Snickersâ„¢, and Gatoradeâ„¢ and we fished some more. A few more hits but no takes and we later moved to the channel in Snake Bight looking for sharks.

On our way there, we saw 15 dolphins playing around. I thought at first that they were sharks (we only saw their fins), but as I saw no tails and then one eventually jumped, we figured them to be dolphins. After getting to the channel and still not seeing any sharks, we instead rigged up our chum bag and hooked on some dead menhaden under popping corks (that's all I've got). We picked up a good number of 5 lb. Jack Crevalle and some catfish. I kept vigilant for shark tails - we didn't see any all day.

We paddled back and wowee was the tide low! Some parts of the journey back were literally muck-ridden scootch-fests. We couldn't get out and walk because the mud in Flamingo is that "will suck you in up to your nipples" variety. "QuickMudâ„¢" they should call it. It's bad.

Note: The image above is from a different day of fishing. See this entry.