CAPTAIN DAVE SUTTON ON SALTWATER FISHING WITH SPIKE-IT
Redfish and Snook on Spike-It Products
 EDITOR'S
NOTE: Captain Dave Sutton of Homestead, Florida, a fishing
guide in the Everglades National Park, Biscayne Bay
National Park and the Upper Florida Keys, takes anglers
to permit, tarpon, redfish, snook, speckled trout, dolphin,
wahoo, grouper and snapper. Sutton, who has fished these
waters for 16 years and has guided for the last 6 years,
has discovered that using the new Spike-It products
for these saltwater fish pays off for him.
Most days I'll be fishing from a 16-foot Maverick,
poling in very-shallow water and looking for redfish
out in the Everglades. I'll often be pushing the boat
through 5 or 6 inches of water that's extremely clear
or very muddy. The color of the water makes a really
big difference in the color  of
lures that I choose for my anglers to fish. When we're
fishing in this shallow water, we'll often be fishing
a gold spoon because the gold spoon is weedless, has
good vibrations and fishes well in extremely-shallow
water. I always use a trailer on my spoon and particularly
like the 4-inch Spike-It Holographic grub for a trailer.
If the water's clear, I like the avocado-colored grub
as a trailer. If the water's a little muddy, I prefer
the black or the amber colors.
On this particular day, I was fishing with a customer
I'd fished with previously. Although I always furnished
the rods and the baits for my customers to fish with,
this particular customer preferred to bring his own
rods and lures. When he got on board, he had G. Loomis
rods with Shimano Stealth reels and gold spoons tied
on his lines. He was using Power Baits for his trailers.
We went out fishing, and I was poling the boat, and
my client kept saying, "Come on, Dave, get one
of your rods and start casting, too." I finally
agreed to fish with him, and we blind-cast the edge
of some mangroves. A big flat was there, right up against
the land, and a drop-off that created a little trough
all the way down the edge of the mangroves. I made one
cast to the mangroves  and
brought my gold spoon with the Spike-It 4-inch grub
trailer in the avocado color, and I hooked a snook.
The fish wasn't big, only about 20- or 21-inches long,
but it was a snook. This client wouldn't let me hand
him the rod so he could reel the snook in and said,
"No, no, no. You hooked the fish, so you land it."
I brought the fish in, unhooked it and released it.
Then I started poling again. After only a few minutes
my client said, "Come on, come on. Start casting."
Since I knew I could joke with this customer, I said,
"I don't want to kick your butt again by catching
another fish when you haven't caught one all day."
Well, of course, that set my customer on fire, and he
kept insisting that I fish. I quit poling, picked up
my rod, made my second cast of the day and caught a
redfish. Now remember, I was fishing behind my customer
in used water. He had already covered all that water
with his gold spoons and Power Bait trailers. When I
released the redfish, my customer turned to me and said,
"Okay, I can take a hint. Give me one of those
Spike-It trailers for my gold spoon. You're catching
fish, and I'm not. The only difference in our two lures
is that you have on a Spike-It trailer, and I'm using
a Power Bait trailer. So, give me one of your trailers.
I've made about 100 casts and caught nothing. You've
made two casts and caught two fish. I'm ready to learn
now."
 Once
my client Ron Hill put the Spike-It trailer on his gold
spoon, he eventually caught nine redfish and four snook.
The biggest snook he took that day was 34-inches long,
a 12 pounder, which won the Herman Lucerne Memorial
Fishing Competition's largest snook award. There were
58 boats entered in the contest and 102 anglers.
For more information on how you can fish with Captain
Dave Sutton, contact him at djsutton@bellsouth.net or
go to www.saltwaterflyfisherman.com.
To learn more about Spike-It's top-quality lures, paints
and other fishing products and the Color-C-Lector, go
to www.ISpikeIt.com
TOMORROW: SPIKE-IT FOR SPECKLED
TROUT
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