In early 2020 during the pandemic lockdown, Kayley and I decided to sell our home in Washington and move back to Alaska. Our plan was to move back in the summer of 2021 since I was already committed to being a fly fishing guide in Washington in 2020. As the fishing season began to wind down, we met with a realtor and found out it was a great time to sell our house, so we decided to take a little road trip before heading back to Thorne Bay. We left Washington with our truck and travel trailer on January 19, 2021 and headed south to find warmer weather. Once we got to Arizona, we started to travel east towards Florida. On our way through Texas we had three tire blowouts and found out we had cracked an axle. We ended up stuck just outside of San Antonio for 9 days and left Texas with a new travel trailer. During our time in Texas, our fishing trip began. I found out that there was a trout stream of all things not far from where we were so I decided to explore. The Guadalupe River is in beautiful Texas hill country near Canyon Lake. While not what I am used to in a trout stream, the small river does produce some decent size rainbow trout. I used a 3 weight euro nymphing rod and was able to find a few small rainbows where riffles dropped into buckets. Not the fly fishing experience I thought I would have in Texas, it was still great to get on the water. After a quick stop in New Orleans, we made our way to Cape Coral, Florida on the gulf coast. We ended up staying in Florida for nearly a month and did some serious fly fishing. Our first Florida fly fishing experience was on the beaches of Sanibel Island in search of Snook. The beaches of Sanibel were beautiful white sand that you could hike for miles. We spent days hiking the beaches in the mornings using 8 weights with floating lines and Clouser Minnows. We found Ladyfish, Spanish Mackrel, speckled trout, and Jack Caravelle during our outings but not the sight fishing for Snook we were hoping for. Some local anglers later told us that it was still too cold even though the temperatures were in the 80s which was a strange concept for me being from the Northwest. We decided to try our luck on the water so we went out with a really cool guide in Matlacha named Joe Harley. Joe had a custom flats boat that we used to poll the shallows near the Mangroves in Pine Island Sound where we sight fished to Snook, Redfish, and Speckled Trout. Low numbers of fish was still a challenge for us even though we now had to mobility of a boat, but we did manage some nice Snook and a large Trout, but Redfish eluded us. Our next stop was Islamorada in the Florida Keys where we planned another guided trip with our hopes set on Redfish, Tarpon, and maybe even a Permit. Our guide John knew some great spots in the area and got us shots at some really great fish. Our very first stop hot us a look at a Permit that I failed to get a shot at and was unfortunately the only one we would see the whole trip. Our next stop brought us to murky flats near the Everglades that were rich with Redfish and Snook. The cloudy color of the water on this day made the fishing very challenging because we often would not see a fish until we were with 10 or 20 feet. Making a cast at that distance without spooking the fished proved to be very difficult. Finally we found a Redfish that turned away from us as we approached and I was able to put a cast to it. After a couple strips I was tight to my first Redfish. Unlike the Snook I had caught that had an aggressive, shaky, acrobatic fight to them, the Redfish pulled hard with h speed. The Redfish stayed low and would make hard runs. After we landed the fish we spent a few more hours taking short shots at more fish. Kayley had a good chance at one, and I got one more to eat but trout set and pulled the hook out of its mouth. After that we went in search of Tarpon. We did not hook a Tarpon on this trip but I had shots at a couple that were probably pushing 100 pounds and it was exciting. The first one I saw was about 30 seconds after we got to our first spot and I saw it broadside at about 40 feet. It spooked and I missed my shot, but the fish looked to be about 5 feet long and got my adrenaline pumping. I made casts at two other fish about the same size but never got an eat. I had some difficulty casting because these fish got me so excited I was shaking. When I go back to Florida I plan on spending much more time chasing Tarpon. While we were in Florida, it was bought to our attention that North Carolina has some good trout fishing opportunities, so we decided to go check it out. So we left Florida and went and spent a week near Bryson City, North Carolina...
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