Happy New Years everyone, on my behalf. I hope everyone is doing great and looking forward to this upcoming year. Let me start by saying my New Years resolution was take all pics in black and white. Hopefully I can keep that promise until the end of the Year. Anyways, I’ve been doing some fishing lately, specially in the Christmas break due to the fact that I was not working for an entire week. I wen’t out with PK out on Christmas eve on a last minute trip. Thought nobody wanted to fish before Christmas but I know I did. We caught some fish, we didn’t take many pics, due to the fact that we were separated most of the time.
Pic by: Pk (Jason Fernandez)
Right before New Years, Eric Estrada planned a Flamingo camping trip for the weekend, and of course I had to join in the fun. It was Eric, Warren Chin, Rainer and Noel Schael, Ryan Masih Das, Brandon Hooligan, Matt Cox, and Rob Gilbert. They camped out on Friday to Sunday. I had to DJ Friday night so I went early Saturday Morning Solo. Around 9 am PK called me saying he wanted to fish for a couple of hours. Luckily I had my other kayak in the car. He joined me to do some snook fishing but we didn’t see much except for this little guy. I broke 2 rods that day casting.
Pic by: PK (Jason Fernandez)
PK doing some hand modeling with this fly.
We called it a day, PK headed home and I headed for the Campgrounds. I decided to make another trip out in the afternoon and caught some more snookies. I met up with Warren and Eric in the afternoon on the water on their way back. We went to the campgrounds to setup for dinner and a night of drinking,talking crap, casting rods, sharing stories, and blurring stuff out like “I wanna share a Gazebo with a Cuban” -Warren. Let’s just say no one got any sleep that night. I really got to give it up to Brandon and Ryan for cooking for everyone. They really know their Culinary Arts, maybe except for that they never washed their hands.
Sunday Morning I headed out on Eric’s boat to cast at some big reds that were in the upper 30’s to 40’s inches, except they wanted to do nothing with the flies we tossed at them. We tried all morning under some cloudy conditions and some heavy rain. It was not happening for us, so we went back to the marina. After the rain passed I knew it was gonna slick out, all these guys went home because they were hungry. I, on the other hand, decided to paddle out in the kayaks around 2 pm. Im glad I did because there was a lot of action on the flats. 
Ended the that afternoon with 9 redfish and caught this cool looking redfish at the end of the day. I don’t think ive never caught one with so many spots before. 
The paddle back to the Marina was brutal especially after fishing all day. Luckily Rainer Schael and Noel Schael was still camping in their RV and invited me to over for dinner. They made some badass steak and rice, and some cookies for dessert. That was the best time of the day for me, since I had been eating canned Mac-n-Cheese the whole day. Thank you so much Rainer and Noel for their hospitality. I pitched out the tent, got some sleep and ready for another day on the flats.
Monday morning got an early start paddled out with couple of fellow kayakers that were just unloading their kayaks at the marina from team aweson. Once on the flat I went looking for sheepshead but couldn’t find anything, due to the fact that it was cloudy most of the day. I continued to find some tailing reds. 
The tide was going out, I met some guy out there, Larry Germi, who gave me a tow out the channel once there was no water to be fished.
I had a huge headache so I fished for a bit and went to sleep until the tide started coming in. Once the tide came in, I still had a huge headache but I went to work quick and got some more reds. That day I ended with 7 reds caught and missed a nice snook that was on the flats. Met some other kayakers out in the flats. That day the flats were loaded with people.
The paddle back to the Marina was even worse than the previous day. Paddled against the current was horrible. All I wanted to do is eat and take a headache pill. Finally got back to the marina ate something and went home to rest.
The day after New Years day I went out with Gavin Greco. Mission was to catch some Tarpon and Snook. I needed to catch my first fish of 2014. I took the Diablos early that morning and had a pretty nice time with some Juvenile Tarpon. And here was my first fish of 2014. 
Gavin had caught some fish before this one but we were separated so we didn’t get a pic. Here he is with one of his poons. 
We had gotten some DNA sampling kits, so we put those to good use on some of the Tarpon. 
Next we moved to see if we could find some bigger laid up snook in 4-6 inches of water. We found them but they were impossible to feed. Gavin got one to bite. 
Well I’ve enjoyed my time off work, and happy to get out on the water. As I am writing this I am currently a bit late to work.
Unil next time, Stay classy Miami….
-Dan Decibel