Capt. Travis Freeman
Hello my fellow anglers, Captain Travis from Steady Fishing Charters in Everglades City/ Chokoloskee Island, just giving everyone a little inside scoop on the fishing down here in the Everglades and 10,000 islands. I fish at least 4 days out of the week, year-round down here in the Everglades National Park & Chokoloskee area! My clients haven’t had any days in the past week without catching 20 to 40 snook, all between 20-24 inches all the way to just above the 33-inch slot limit! The bigger snook have definitely made their fall run into the backcountry of the Everglades, as they do every year. Redfish have still been all over the outside islands starting to make their way into the bays and back country’s of the Everglades as well. Both snook and redfish have been striking plugs, soft jerk baits, live shrimp with about 3ft of 40-pound test fluorocarbon leader tied to a popping cork, of course live pilchards or finger mullet are always a go to bait for me. Also, anytime you see live white bait around a point, cove, deeper areas around oyster bars, and of course any logs or structure in anywhere from 4ft to 10ft of water. As far as seatrout, they are here year-round, but coming into the winter here in early December, we have been catching some really nice 18 to 24-inch seatrout, using a popping cork with a shrimp or just casting and jigging along the grass flats of the gulf coast shorelines, here in Chokoloskee and Everglades City. Pretty similar to snook or red fishing, but definitely totally different areas and surroundings. Another fish that we have been running in to and catching more and more of are tripletail and they are an absolute blast to fight, catch, and even better to eat! The juvenile tarpon, between 10 to 30 pounds, are all over the rivers and main passes at this time. I have my clients cast a top water plug or a jerk bait right on top of the fish as we see them roll on the surface and that is always a very productive way to hookup and catch juvenile tarpon this time of year. I hope this information is helpful to all my fellow fisherwomen and fishermen. Now let’s go fishing! Book your trip now at Steady fishing an Everglades tradition. With myself captain Travis Freeman a 5th generation Everglades city native.
