Land Based

Tamiami Trail
This is truly a slice of old Florida! Scenic beauty is just a quick look to your right or left as you traverse through the swamps, prairies and the lush Big Cypress of the Everglades. This stretch of national roadway called the Tamiami Trail or U.S. 41 was completed in 1928, and was the first road to connect residents of both coasts - providing a quick and easy way to reach the other side of the state. The roadway was built with the dredging of the canal that runs alongside its 275 miles from Miami to Tampa. The fishery that was established with the dredging of the canal is truly unique and is ripe with fly fishing history. Noted angling greats such as the late Joe Brooks fished and wrote about this thin slice of water and its snook and baby tarpon in the early 1950's entitled Saltwater Fly Fishing. Other well known anglers such as the legendary Capt. Bill Curtis best known for introducing the first poling platform onto a flats skiff, Steve Kantner probably today's biggest authority on the Trail (also known as the "land captain"), Chico Fernandez, Lefty Kreh, and many others have walked its length with fly rod in hand and many still do. Today, as it did over half a century ago, the Trail offers to fly fisherman a viable walk-in fishery for snook and baby tarpon. It also offers up the occasional redfish, jack crevalle and has plenty of quality bass and an assortment of South American exotic species like oscars, cichlids and butterfly peacock bass in certain stretches. Fly tackle on the trail is comparable to trout tackle with a 5 weight to 7 weight being appropriate choices. Snook average between 15 to 22 inches and the tarpon ranging from 2 to 15 pounds.

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