2010 » April » 23

Special Out of Area contributor….Keith Danzig….along with his fish catching son….send us in this absolute treat of a post. Thanks a ton, Keith! Chris Heller.


Written by Keith Danzig

Fishing in the 10,000 Island Region of the Everglades. If you have ever dreamt of fishing in a beautiful tropical wilderness but can’t afford to go to the resorts in Mexico or Belize, the 10,000 island region of the everglades may be just the ticket. The scenery, wildlife and fishing are amazing – you would never know that you are less than two hours from the airports in Ft. Meyers or Miami.

This is a group of thousands of mangrove covered islands in a maze-like saltwater estuary environment where you will see more birds, dolphin, manatees, alligators and yes – prized gamefish like tarpon, snook, redfish, and groupers than you could have imagined. My friend Chris is kind enough to take us out for a few days fishing every year when we visit my inlaws in the winter in the Naples area. Here are a few of the pictures we have taken in recent years to whet your appetite.

All of the fish were caught on light tackle spinning outfits with various artificials except the grouper that my son is holding – that fish ate a piece of ladyfish on medium conventional gear – you have to step it up for the bigger grouper because they live in gnarly structure underneath the mangroves and you have to get them coming to the boat right away or you get cut off in seconds when they scrape your line on limestone shelves or oyster encrusted mangrove roots.



















(The 2 pictures directly above…)Here are some pictures from a phenomenal day of striped bass fishing in eastern Long Island Sound in late June 2009. I go east for a family vacation at the beginning of summer with my wife and 3 kids to hang with our families and enjoy the beautiful New England coast. Although the action was uncharacteristically slow in terms of numbers of fish this day, every fish we caught was solid and fought like a bulldog.

We went 8 for 9 with fish ranging from 15lbs (34”) to 38lbs (about 45”). We fished a mix of tactics: Large live bait on a three way rig drifted over a 30’ rocky reef top, tube and worm slow trolling shallow rock structure, and casting plugs on light spinning outfits to structure. We covered a lot of ground that day from Bartlett’s reef off of Saybrook, CT over to Orient Point and the edge of Plum Gut in NY waters. Needless to say my son had a great time and he may have caught more large bass in one day than some people will catch in 10 years!

I knew he was ruined for life when he looked at the 4th or 5th fish we caught that day – the 34” fish – and said “Wow Dad, I’m glad you caught a really small one – mine were much bigger”. This was the last day of 5 total fishing days and the action was some of the best I have seen in my 40 years of fishing in New England. Earlier in the trip we fished the big rip off Block Island in Rhode Island with Chris Bell using light tackle and walk-the-dog surface plugs. This may have been the highlight of the vacation.

4 of us hooked over 100 fish in two days some as small as 20”, most in the 30” to 34” range and a few that stretched the tape to 36” or better. There must have been a half a dozen times when all 4 of us were hooked up at once. When I lived in NY about 20 years ago and fished these waters all the time, I thought I was one of the best striper fisherman out there.

Fishing with Chris Bell from Adventure Charters and Pat Renna from T-Man Charters was a humbling eye opener. These guys are simply at another level when it comes to knowledge about the sport and they were fun and gracious captains – not like many who work the waters. In the past 15 year the restoration work for striped bass has lead to some incredible results. The same could be said for redfish restoration in the Gulf of Mexico.

I only hope that over time we can do the same for salmon and steelhead.

Keith Danzig.