Captain Travis Freeman
Hey folks, Captain Travis Freeman here again and I’m ready to give all you hungry anglers out there MY inside scoop on some superhot spots in this area right now, from Everglades City to Lostman’s River, and let all you folks know where and how, I myself, have been catching all these beautiful action packed fish. As far as casting artificials, I like to cast a soft paddle tail with an 1/8oz jig head, use various fishing lures, plugs, of course a popping cork with a live shrimp, and last but definitely not least live pilchards, at least 4” long. Fishing is really starting to get better and better here in SW Florida, out of Everglades City and Chokoloskee Island/10,000 Islands area.
It’s November now and we are into what I like to call FULL fall and to me that just means it’s getting very close to winter season and the water is getting colder and colder on a daily basis. I have been catching a lot of nice solid 28” to 33” slot snook, as well every size in between (18”-38”) on big live pilchards in the rivers and nearshore islands of the gulf. Every redfish that I or one of my clients have caught in the past 2 weeks, which has been a lot, has either been a really nice legal redfish or over 27 inches, which is the maximum length redfish that we can harvest here in SW Florida National Park/ The 10,000 islands. Also, there are always some nice 18” to 24” seatrout around on the grass flats this time of year. Seatrout are a super fun aggressive ambush predator. They attack fast and with a lot of pound-for-pound strength and action; similar to the snook or tarpon ambush! As it cools down we will start to catch more and more bigger seatrout on the grass flats. Seatrout are always an easy fun fish for the kids or an inexperienced angler to have a good time learning with because we fish in open water for trout 99% of the time and that makes many of things a lot less stressful on the angler. I hope this information is helpful to all of you serious hungry anglers and future anglers out there! Stay safe and God bless, Capt. Travis.
