June 08, 2012
By Bob Bramblet
This week, new kayak blogger "Bonita" Bob Bramblet takes us on a trip through Estero Bay in Southwest, Florida. Every other week, Bob will hit a new part of the state with fellow Florida Sportsman members in search of exciting kayak fishing. Contact Bonita Bob if you want to fish with him.
I met up with Allen Reddick (reelman325) at Week's Fish Camp in Estero. Allen has been fishing the Southwest Florida area since he was a boy. He is a self described “lurker” on the forum, but enjoys reading posts from around the state. On this day, Allen was showing me one of his favorite spots, a little bay north of the launch on the “East wall” of Estero Bay.
We launched and left the marina area, rounded the mangroves to head north and ran right into a rare sight in Estero Bay, tailing redfish. Allen had suggested we use Gulp shrimp on jigheads, so I began casting right away. On the first cast I hooked up with a decent redfish. We had been on the water for about 5 minutes and we were off to a good start! The fish moved on and we did too, heading north to Allen's spot.
We arrived at an oyster bed about two miles from the launch. Allen was using a curly tail jig in a rootbeer color. He hooked a decent snook, then another. The oysters were on the edge of a flats area, and it seemed the snook were on the deeper side. We both caught several snook before changing gears and paddling onto the flats for more reds. Allen uses a Tarpon 160 and can get into some skinny water. That's where he found his redfish on a Gulp shrimp.
As we were headed back to the launch, I mentioned all we needed to slam "out" was a trout, and Allen smiled and said “that's easy.” When we were almost back to where we started, we began casting on the edge of the grass flats near the channel and caught several trout. It was a perfect end to the day, and it was only 1:00 pm!
I asked Allen earlier in the day why he liked this area so much, and after we landed back at Week's, he reminded me of my question. It was obvious he knew the area, but equally obvious that there was just a lot of fish there. Week's fish Camp is located at the end of Coconut Rd in Estero. Ramp launch fees are $5 for kayakers and they have live bait and plenty of parking. If you go and see a guy in a tan Tarpon 160, say hello to Allen Reddick.
