Drum season
May 02, 2020 Key Largo 1 photo

Trip Summary

Greetings from the South Florida Everglades. *We are practicing structured cleaning practices to ensure our boat and equipment are safe and clean* Our weather has been beautiful and the drum bite has remained hot! We are finding schools of red and black drum both in the back country of Everglades city and in the surrounding bays and flats. On a recent trip, we found a large school of redfish and black drum together! We knew they were in the area when we found "mudding" zones. Drum tend to "lift muds" when feeding or moving from one zone to the other, and so we had good success when targeting those areas. We are currently throwing GULP products, soft plastic paddle tail baits and the like at these schools and doing well with them. It seems as if they are taking ANY color pattern but a more natural color choice is working best. We've come down to 20 lb floru but are finding that we are having to change our leader much MORE after doing so, and honestly, we are not quite sure if this has contributed to more bites or not. All in all, the south Florida drum bite is good to great right now and as our weather is warming up (by Florida standards), we are excited to share that we boated our first triple tail of the season this past weekend- also caught on a GULP product. Book with us today and get in on the drum bite, and be prepared for a surprise Triple tail! ** Capt Armando is a Florida native and has fished the South Fl Everglades over the past 20 years. Capt runs his business with his clients best interests in mind, takes pride in customer service and thrives on teaching his clients what he has learned in his guiding career. Book with him today and fish with the Everglades most "personable" guide. See y'all on the water!
Armando Alejo, M.S.
Key-largo, Florida, United States
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Hop aboard A2 Fishing Charters for a fun-filled Floridian fishing adventure. Captain Armando is the areas most personable, knowledgeable, and informative guide. Join him aboard and be pampered by his world class customer service. The Captain has verified ...

Other reports from this captain

Let us get you aboard this year, 2024!
Let us get you aboard this year, 2024!
January 3, 2024
Greetings A2 Fishing Charters, new and former customers! We've closed another great season here at A2 Fishing Charters, and we are now blessed to be on the water for another great season, our 9th! Our weather has chilled, and we are now enjoying our BEST weather of the year- a great time to be outside. On most days, our afternoons are in the upper 70's, with our morning rides in the upper 60's, just beautiful and pleasant. The fishing has bordered on epic, on many days! Over the past few weeks, we've boated quite a few slot Snook, upper slot Redfish and hundreds of speckled trout. Quick limits of speckled trout have been the norm with mostly all of my groups catching their bag limit of those over our abundant grass flats in the Everglades (3 per person). On a recent trip, Ms. Bethany (a new customer to me), and her family came aboard and requested a slot Snook, almost immediately- no pressure on me at all :). We set out from Flamingo on this trip and started our day targeting speckled trout, at their request. We fought hard for them, and boated our limit and about an hour... We then set our sites on her Snook request and did so by making a good solid run east to a spot that usually gets us at least a shot at a Snook. Upon arriving, I noticed that the tide wasn't quite right, yet! So I chose to troll the area near the spot for me to gauge where the bite would be! In a matter of moments, we all started getting bites! First Ms. Bethany's son, then her nephew and then her! Wouldn't you know it, I rebaited Ms. Bethany and committed a big error, I put her rod on the deck! Within minutes and in the turmoil of everyone catching, Ms. Bethany's bait got hit, her rod fell to the lower deck and the drag went off... I acrobatically caught the butt of the rod, only to notice the fish had hooked itself on the circle hook I'd rigged. It was one of those moments when WHERE EVERYTHING WENT RIGHT! I caught wind of Ms. Bethany and heard her praying for father whom had passed away recently, she was asking him to help her land this fish! And she sure did! What a great catch she made. I shared a great moment with my new customer, received a hug from her in celebration and we proceeded to photograph her catch. Take a look at our reviews if you need any convincing, and book with me today to expreience the best customer service in our area. Capt Armando of A2 Fishing Charters.
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Good action, all day!
Good action, all day!
December 21, 2023
Greetings A2 fans. Cancellations are inevitable, particularly in these economic circumstances. On the days leading to this trip, I had two cancellations- both totally out of my control! That said, I was still able to fish with my new customer, and now friend Zach. Check out his review on my page, for the days results. We ran out of Key Largo, and headed toward one of the worlds best fisheries! The Flamingo Everglades. On our first stop, we focused on catching Sheepshead, but pulled over a dozen mangrove snapper instead. Zach and I jumped on plane, headed west and made another stop for Snook, but again we caught a different species- Trout. Boating our limit of Speckled trout didn't take long, so we chilled our six for the trip and continued our trip toward Everglades National Park. Not totally satisfied with our speckled trout bite, we worked a spot that had huge numbers of trout on a previous trip- we boated another 30+ trout before we took a mid day break for lunch. Having our quantity fix, we made an adjustment to quality! We made a good run North and stopped in for some Redfish. After working the area thoroughly, we finally picked some small Snook, and a bonus black drum. With about 30 minutes left on the trip, I made one final run to try for a nicer Redfish! At about the time we had to go, Zach made his best cast of the day, hooked and fought the Redfish pictured above! I enjoyed seeing Zach go to work with this fish, one of our best of the day. All in all, we caught plenty of fish on this trip and closed the trip with a nice Redfish to boot! Capt Armando of A2 Fishing Charters.
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