Wading fly fishers cast at Sanibel Rocks, beachfront travertine formations that attract a variety of gamefish.

Chris Coile stripped, stripped, and then yanked up his rodtip. “There,” he said. The rod doubled over and began bouncing in his hands.

“Big fish?” I asked.

“Two fish, I think,” he answered. Coile, who was fishing a tandem fly rig—a green-and-white Clouser Minnow with a Norm’s Schminnow as a trailer—had his hands full.

He fought the fish to the boat, and then the line tore off the reel again.

“The one below is the big fish,” he said, as he led in an 18-inch seatrout and a fat gafftopsail catfish. It was his fifth or sixth double hookup of the afternoon.

In three hours of fishing Pine Island Sound on the backside of Sanibel Island, we had boated the one catfish and many other trout, plus snook, Spanish mackerel, jack crevalle, pinfish and ladyfish. It was not an unusual day for the waters around Sanibel.

The Keys are more famous and glamorous. The Everglades more mysterious. But when it comes to flyfishing, Sanibel Island does not take a back seat to any other destination. This southwest Florida barrier island offers an amazing range of fly fishing options both from shore and boat.

Dave Schwerdt, who has been fly fishing around Sanibel for more than 30 years, is clear about why he chooses to live on the island. Schwerdt has fly-fished all over the United States, as well as the Bahamas, the Caribbean and many places in Central and South America.

“The reason I live here is because I love to fly fish here.” Schwerdt says. “I’d live in Costa Rica if I thought the fly fishing was gonna be better there.”

Perhaps the best expression of Sanibel’s opportunities is the old saw that variety is the spice of life. The big three on Sanibel—snook, redfish and seatrout—whet the angling appetites of visitors from around the country and the world. Add to these a multiplicity of other first-rate fly quarry and you get a fly angler’s smorgasbord that, once tasted, is hard to resist returning to.

After the dominant triumvirate, the list of other fish common to Sanibel waters reads like a Who’s Who of warmwater, saltwater fly quarry. In addition to the fish we caught that afternoon, other common species are pompano, tripletail, bluefish, mangrove snapper, sheepshead and grouper.

Permit are common on Sanibel’s offshore reefs in the spring and summer. Tarpon are also a big part of the mix, from the 2- to 20-pound babies to the big boys (and girls) upwards of 100. There are resident tarpon around Sanibel all year but the peak tarpon fishing happens in the spring and summer with the arrival of migrating fish.

Schwerdt moved to the island full-time in 1979, specifically to target redfish, snook, trout and tarpon. When asked his favorite, he does not hesitate. “My absolute favorite? It’s just gotta be snook,” he says.

Surf snook take the spotlight in summer.

Sanibel fly fishing is basically a two-sided coin—beach and back bay. Both categories can be divided into sub-classifications.

Along the island’s 12 miles of Gulf shoreline are three main benthic environments: shell and sand, hard bottom and structure. Boat anglers have one more option that does not fit any of the other types but could be considered temporary structure—the crab pot buoys that attract tripletail.

Most of Sanibel’s Gulf shoreline fishing is classic beach angling in shallow water over shell-and-sand substrate. The bottom contour along the Gulf beaches is mainly flat or gently sloping, but in some areas a channel runs close to shore. Outside these inshore troughs are flats that vary widely in size and location because they can shift dramatically with wind and wave action.

Sanibel is blessed to have one of the most productive areas of inshore hard bottom in Southwest Florida. It is difficult to overestimate the productivity of the Sanibel Rocks, travertine formations located close to the beach about a mile west of the island’s midpoint. The Rocks were buried in 1997 by a disastrous beach renourishment, which ruined the area for fishing for three years, until they were finally uncovered again.