Capt. Nestor Alvisa Hooked on Flamingo Charter
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As we move into March and April we start to notice a little more of a consistent weather pattern of our typical South Florida weather and see far less cold fronts. During these months my time is still split between fishing Flamingo, fishing for tarpon out of Miami in the evenings and fishing offshore out of Miami for sailfish and any other pelagic species.

On my Flamingo trips during March and April I’ll typically start my days fishing inside creeks. You can find me fishing inshore around mangrove shorelines and islands on the higher stages of the tides using live shrimp under popping corks working points and down tress. Another great option is running the near shore crab pots for tripletail. Once you’ve spotted your fish, a free lined live shrimp or shrimp pattern artificial worked near the buoy will get the tripletails attention quick.  During these months we also start to see schools of tarpon working South and these fish will hang up and down the coast and around Cape Sable. A live mullet, pinfish or artificial swim bait will work best.

On flat calm days running out into the Gulf and fishing wrecks and other structures is also very productive. We usually run into some cobias and permit on most of our trips when we make these runs out. A live half dollar size crab for the permit will work best and a live pinfish or bucktail jigs will work for the cobias.

For my evening tarpon trips will be fishing the bridges around Miami mostly during an outgoing tide. I’ll position my boat up current of the bridge span we are going to fish using my MinnKota Ulterra trolling motor. Once in position we free line a live shrimp back and hold on!

On the offshore side I tend to run out of Government Cut and head offshore. We typically start by looking for an edge “color change” and start a drift. I like to put out an assortment of baits covering several depth columns. Once we have a drift pattern if we have wind I’ll pit out a kite with three baits off one side of the boat and on my other side I like to run a flat line and one or two mid water baits as well.