Flamingo Fish Kill 2010, Jan 24th 2010

Flamingo Fish Kill

By Sam Root of Saltyshores.com

I just back from fishing Flamingo, Florida aka Everglades National Park. I got good news and I got bad news. Bad news is the fish kill is very very serious and unfortunately 9 out 10 of the game fish that were killed were snook. I went out there with Honson and his friend Luigi(yes like in the Mario brothers). It's been a couple weeks since the freeze so we wanted to see what has come back. We only took fly rods to see if we can get into some sight fishing.

The conditions were slick calm that morning and we could see for miles, except for one thing. Super fog! We took our time running around the gulf side of the Everglades. Once the fog lifted we saw lots of death drifting in the glass calm waters. We would pass by anything large we saw on the water. I am sorry to say most of the large fish we ran by were breeder snooks that never made it through the freeze. A very very sad sight when you see hundreds of dead fish floating knowing most of them were breeder size snooks.

While stopping at one carcass we did see lots of life compared to one week ago. One surprise was a bunch of Palolo worms. These were the same type of worms that are found in the keys during the summer months. The Tarpon just love them. There were small bait fish slurping these little guys up all around us. This was breath taking to see. Life starting to come back once again. Hopefully tarpon would follow soon.

We poled the flats in some of the creeks and saw only a couple reds. On the way out we did bump into Honson's friend Brian. Brian was using jigs with shrimp and saw some reds and snook earlier in the day. He did manage one redfish before they spooked off. We followed Brian back into the creeks and he caught a few snappers and groupers in the deeper holes. During the run we did see a few dead Goliath groupers that did not fare well in the cold.

Although it sound like no one should ever fish again, all is not lost however. There were plenty of reds and trout being caught that day. The water temperature was rising and the bait were showing back up on the flats. The fishing can only get better I believe. The only species I'm really worried about are the snooks. There were just way too many breeders dead. Not even seeing one alive all day is never good. I did not see any dead redfish and compared to the snook the Tarpon did fine considering. When we got back to the ramp later that day the researcher told us no one has caught a snook all day.

I will be checking out Chokoloskee later in the week. I am afraid I will be seeing the same thing. Hopefully, it should be warm enough for the fish that did make to safe haven offshore, to find their way back once again.

Photo notes: Dull and dreary day filled with images of dead fish. As you can see my images reflect that. The edits are very monochromatic on purpose. My camera still have color. :)

This was the scene at the boat ramp at flamingo, hundreds of dead baby tarpon and snooks. Sadly this was all too familiar. The smell was rancid.






Palola worms.

Andros 32 by Sam Root of Saltyshores.com

Andros 32, How to photograph a boat from a helicopter, By Sam Root of Saltyshores.com

January 13th, 2010

How to photograph a boat from a helicopter:
Well I got out today in Sarasota Florida to do a helicopter Boat shoot. The boat happens to be the new for 2010 Andros 32 .

At 6am this morning I wa making the drive down to the Sarasota airport. To meet up with the helicopter pilot.  It was fridget 38 degrees out side. I bundled up and got out into the gulf of Mexico. We found the 32 feet Andros and started to do all kinds of crazy maneuvers. The pilot was awesome,  he ws like 50′ from the boat at times and I had to ask to be backed off it was crazy.  We even flew under a bridge following the 32 back when we were finished.

To shoot a moving object you have to have a fast shutter speed. So I set my camera to Shutter priority at 800/s or 1000/s or  more if you have enough light. The faster the better.  I set my ISO between 200-400. 200 if you have plenty of light 400 is low light setting, like this morning.

Since the chopper was costing $700.00 per hour I had better not screw up! I set my camera to shoot in bracket mode. What bracket mode does was shoot multiple exposure shots with one push of the button. In case there was bad lighting one out of those 3 shots would have been exposed properly.  It’s kind of a insurance policy, just in case.

I also set my camera to meter center weighted. This means it meters the scene using what is near my focus. Since all I care about is exposing the boat properly and not worrying about the water etc. Since were shooting  a dark colored boat a general 3D matrix exposure probably would not have worked as good.
By the end of the hour I was at almost 600 shots fired.



Here’s a little Iphone clip shot from the boat, Yes that’s me in the chopper: (warning: turn down your audio, it’s loud)

Here are some I had a chance to edit. Very little editing as the morning light was great. I did not use the shadows and highlights at all, as evidence in the lack of the famous halo effects.
New for 2010 Andros 32 More details as I get them. They are just 30 minutes from me so that should not be a problem.

How to make a fly fishing stripping basket, Orvis Stripping Basket.

By Sam Root of Saltyshores.com

While I was out wading and fly fishing for the redfish yesterday it’s pretty apparent to me that the fly line sitting on top of the was causing lots of drag not to mention a tangle mess. When you try to make a long cast it just doesn’t go as far due to the water resistance.  I know there are wading striping baskets you can buy but they are usually $50.00 on up.  Since youtube is a plethora of information these days I just did a search on making a stripping basket and came across one.  Even though it’s been a couple of years since he put it up,  it  was very well done. I put one together with the parts I had laying around in the garage and it works pretty well.  I think everything cost less than $10.00. I can say,  it’s not the coolest looking thing in the world to be walking around with,  but it sure does work and work well.




Now if you do want to spend the money, the best one I have  used is the Orvis Stripping basket. This is what makes it better than the others available out there.

Orvis Stripping Basket

• It curves to fit your body comfortably.
• Built in conic shape to keep fly line tangle free.
• Belt is very well made and stays tight.
• Built in rod holder.

The only improvement I would make is drill a couple small holes on the bottom of it to drain the water build out up. Other than that it’s a pretty well thought out design.
I’ve tried a couple other ones.  For saltwater wade fishing anyways, the cons outweigh the pros.
Related posts:

Tampa Fly fishing then Miami for sailfishing(cody, jason, jack)

The last 48 hours has came and went in a blur. Thursday I get  a call from my friend Jason Stock of Jmsnooky Kayak Charters telling me he and a couple buddies(Cody Chivas and Jack of Championanglers.com) are going to Miami to do some sailfish. He said I was welcome to come along if I wanted to. Since I haven’t been sail fishing at all this season I really wanted to so I hurried pack my things and jammed them into the truck. I get a call from Tom of Wanganchor saying he wanted to get out that afternoon of redfish on fly as it was very sunny out today. Not being able to say no, I said ok, packed the fly rod and drove to meet him at the ramp.
The fly fishing for reds wasn’ t on fire but we did manage a couple fish. They were  not plentiful but the ones we got were quality fish of about 31 inches. As the sun started to go sideways and we couldn’t see any more we ran back to the ramp I took off to wards Miami. Jason had called and told me they were on their way down. I caught up to them at Bass Pro shot in Ft. Lauderdale and we had some dinner at the Outback Steakhouse next door. The food was ok and everyone was excited to try get on some sail fish. Towing a 31′ Contender wasn’t and easy task but I call Cody has done this plenty of time. He was making U-turns and all kinds of crazy maneuvers.
We didn’t arrive in Miami until midnight and parking was definitely an issue. We tried to squeeze it in a place we shouldn’t have and took off the rub rails. We finally found a hotel that would let us leave the boat in the parking lot. After pulling the gear out we did the circus clown car trick and piled into my truck to drive back to the condo we were staying at. By this time it was 1:30am and we had to be up by 5:30am to try to get some bait.
530am we were up and ready. By the time ate, breakfast, pick up the boat, did a car switch, and found the boat ramp it was 8:30am before we hit the water. We ran the beaches for bait and got really lucky near south beach.(yes the famous one) We caught lots of bait but the coolest part was there were tons of tarpon every where. Rolling milling and happy. It was tough getting close to them in a 31′ Contender but we did manage to jump 2 before left for sail fishing.
The winds were blowing the wrong direction for sailfish today but we heard the bite had been good. We dropped a kite back and started to drift some baits. The southerly winds didn’t help things but we did see one boat hooked to sail fish so it kept us going. We got 3 Mahi on the drift lines. A few minutes later we doubled up on Bonito. Three more Bonito later we were starting to get frustrated.  We were seeing lots of bait and flying fish scattering but no sailfish.  We eventually had one sail came up to the spread and a couple free jumps but that was it for the day. The sun was going down and the opportunity was lost.
After we found a place to store the bait and got cleaned up it was 8:30pm. We tried to get with my friend Honson(a SS contributor)  but he was too far out and were beyond hungry. Gave Cheese Cake Factory (excellent chain of restaurant btw: lots of food,consistantly good, a variety menu) a try but the hour wait on this Friday night was way too long for us. We found a Tony Romas on north miami beach to dine at.  Two past dishes, a slab of beef ribs, a slab of baby back ribs later we were full. I wasn’t very impressed with Tony Roma’s food(or speed of the food came out)but the food was ok/average andwe were starving.
By now it’s 10pm and I had to make my way back Tampa as I my friend Jose’s wedding to attend. With very little sleep in the past 24 hours I was feeling a bit tired. Not mention the 4 hour drive and being on the water for 12 hours that day. By the time I hit alligator alley was doing the bobble head doll impression.  Knowing this is quite dangerous for mine and everyone elses sake I decided to pull over for a quick knap.  The quick knap turned into 3 hours as  I awake at almost in the middle of an alligator ally parking lot. I tell you one thing though, I was pretty well rested.  I drove back to Tamp in the rain as the front was hitting. Driving up to my drivway it was in the mid 40’s and raining. I tried to lay down to get some sleep but 45minutes was all I could do before the sun came up and I just couldn’t sleep.
As I’m typing this I just left the wedding early(I gotta gotta get some rest in) and got home to write up this report. I  had a couple beers and saw lots of friends I haven’t seen in a while.  I will be putting some video clips up hopefully tomorrow  but here are some photos I thought turned out pretty cool.
Oh and don’t forget to check out the “Sex Drive” energy drink. I found that down in Miami beach and thought.. what will they come out to market next?








Had to put his in here. A new Sex Drive energy drink!

Banana Foster's video in HD using my NIkon D300s

Nikon D300s 12MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)

When we were in Louisiana with Greg Dini , John and I ate at a place called "the Palace" down on Canal street. The food was ok but the Desert was excellent. Since the banana fosters were made right in front of us I decided to video it using the Nikon D300s DSLR. It's a little dark and I was shooting it all in auto mode so the lighting kind of shifted a bit. Overall though it came out ok.

This video is nothing special.. it just shows you how good the low light capabilities are of these DSLR when shooting HD videos. I will be using some of these types of footage when I compile some of the fishing videos I will be shooting here shortly.



Banana Fosters' HD from Sam Root on Vimeo.

Tampa Fly Fishing for Redfish in the freezing cold today.. well freezing for Tampa anyways.

Tampa Redfish Fly fishing, wading in the icy cold.

Jan 2nd 2010

I looked out side it was very cold and windy but there were no clouds in the sky. This will make it excellent for sight fishing. Now a days if I can see the fish I would rather catch them on fly because it makes it more interesting.. yes, more pulling your hair out as well. Heading out by myself, I packed up the skiff with limited gear. I met up with Tom of Wang anchor and Joe of Carbon marine who was already out on the flats. As I pulled up Tom was releasing a small redfish he caught on the fly.

Since I was by myself I couldn’t really control the boat much. After a few frustrating tangles I decided to get out of the boat and waded. I was on fish with in a few minutes but I kept spooking them. I figured out they didn’t like the false cast very much as these are Tampa redfish not those dumb Louisiana ones. I got a nice over slot fish landed and released. That was the formula Joe and Tom quickly noticed and did the same. We landed 8 reds on fly today in 3 hours and 5 of which were over the slot. Once we lost the light it was pretty much over. 2010 for my armature fly fishing is starting off very well.

9wt Gloomis CC GLX, Loop Ecotech reel, Sharkskin line, about 12 foot of leader 15lb tippet.

While wading I dunked my reel a couple times in the saltwater, releasing fish. Loop tells me they have a waterproof drag. I got home and rinsed it off with fresh water I will let you know the results.

Tom snapped a shot me and my 1st fish.







These shots were done on they Olympus waterproof cameras. Very bland, I tried to fix them up in photoshop but this was the best I could do.

Fireworks 2010, Tampa Florida

fireworks photos 2010, Tampa Channelside


January 1st, 2010
Author: sam

Jan 1st 2010



Happy New Year everyone! Last night I was fortunate enough to get a cool vantage point looking over the fireworks in Tampa at my friend’s John’s place.

Photo note: The photos were shot on a tripod using 3 to 8 second exposure at f16. I used a Nikon D300s with and lens set at 17mm.