| Fishing Where the Fish Are I’m lucky enough to live on a canal. Like most fresh water in Florida, it holds its share of fish. Bass, catfish, bluegill, and an occasional weird something put in the water years ago by somebody pouring out their aquarium water – fish and all – before they put it pump and plugs into the trunks of their cars. |
| Beware the Jumping Sturgeon Watch out for jumping sturgeon. That’s the message the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) is telling boaters on the Suwannee River. The giant fish, known as the Gulf sturgeon, is leaping out of the water in parts of the river, and it is a serious problem. Recently, a sturgeon jumped out of the water and struck a 6-year-old girl on a boat, breaking her leg. |
| Does Fishing Really Have To Be That Aggravating? Some of our most treasured moments are those serene, relaxing days on the water – wetting a line – away from the pressures and cacophonies of everyday life. Yet, somehow, this is no longer the all too brief peaceful Shangri-La most of us seek. A case in point are the occasional confrontations between guides netting bait at the Skyway and the anglers fishing above. |
| 43.6 Pound World Record Trout Caught One June 6, Adam Konrad, a Canadian angler was fishing the Lake Diefenbaker system of Saskatchewan. Konrad landed what has been submitted to the International Game Fish Association as the trout that, if accepted, would break the world record for all-tackle trout, a massive 43.6 pound fish that measured 38.5 inches in length and 33 inches in girth. |
| Boating From The Police Blotter Four years ago, I lost a very good friend and business partner in a boating accident. It was one of those incidents that was a compounding of little things that resulted in a horrific nighttime crash into an unmarked piling from a long-removed bridge. |
| Why Can’t I Catch Fish? Four years ago, I lost a very good friend and business partner in a boating accident. It was one of those incidents that was a compounding of little things that resulted in a horrific nighttime crash into an unmarked piling from a long-removed bridge. There's no real desire in my mind to revisit the tragedy, but there is a point: sometimes it's not a gigantic event that triggers a tragedy. |
| Panhandle Billfish Surprise Billfishing in Florida. Many of these spectacular creatures are found cruising the deep waters off our Atlantic coast. Yet there is another billfishery that goes almost unnoticed -- in the Gulf of Mexico Here is an email and picture that we received from one of our readers in Marianna Florida, who hooked a marlin. |
| Who Needs Fly Casting Lessons? When I reminisce with fellow guides about recent trips, the subject of the client’s ability to cast well always leads the discussion. Captain Bryon Chamberlain, an excellent caster with either hand, was telling Dan Lagace and me about a trip last June where they had pods of tarpon coming at his boat in a steady stream for a good part of the morning. |
| Destination: Bar Hopping in Lemon Bay It’s still dark. The water is slick calm. The stillness of the morning is slowly but surely passing us by. The Pelican’s as well as the Osprey’s are in flight looking for breakfast as the sun rises. The dolphins are frolicking off in the distance. Everything is coming alive. As we idle past Stump Pass Marina in search of bait it did not take long to quickly spot some birds working a certain area nearby that holds bait. |
| The Lunker Reds of Upper Tampa Bay The dramatic recovery of redfish has to be one of Florida’s most remarkable marine success stories. In 1987, the state shut down the harvest of this popular species for a full year. Then, in 1988, the FCA (now the CCA) won a four year battle to achieve gamefish status for Florida's drastically depleted redfish stocks. This marked the first time since 1957 that a commercially caught species was removed from Florida markets. |
| Memories of a New York to Florida Transplant Over the last thirty years or so, many families have made the transition from northern areas of the country to here in sunny Florida. Most of the time this change involved the uprooting of a family in order to establish a new life and lifestyle. Many of these recent arrivals came here with considerable angling skills. |
| Baby Tarpon What is my favorite saltwater fish to chase with the long rod? I’m often asked this question. I usually qualify it by saying, “Tailing redfish in shallow water, snook around lighted docks, or baby tarpon.” The first two are more easily available, the last, continues to be a mystery. I have spent a lot of time searching areas for baby tarpon. |
| Seeing red can be a good thing Last week, while I was out king mackerel fishing, I happened to notice a huge, surging, wake full of tails breaking the surface with a red tint to it. I shouted to the captain "Look over there at 1 o'clock is that what I think it is"? He quickly assured me it was. We had been watching the birds all day long to help us find fish |
| Arostegui Achieves His 200th IGFA World Record His first world record fish was caught in the summer of 1994, a 10 lb triple tail on 4 lb tippet near Flamingo in the Everglades National Park. His 200th, also on fly, came nearly 14 years later with a mullet snapper caught in Costa Rica. The news of Dr. Martin Arostegui, Coral Gables, Fla., USA, being the first angler to reach the International Game Fish Association milestone came on the eve of the IGFA's World Record Achievement Awards |
| Do you get my drift? After 37 years as a Floridian, it’s been my pleasure to fish all venues – offshore, back bay, bridges, wading from shore and even freshwater lakes. I have enjoyed working mangrove edges, casting my baits under docks and from the beaches. But now I have concluded that, given a choice, I would much rather spend my time floating across our lush grass flats to catch whatever cares to bite.. |
| Skill, Not Luck Most of my childhood, I was misled by my friends and family -at least about fishing. Whenever a day on the water had lots of "fishing" and very little, if any, "catching" I was told we'd just had an unlucky day, that we'd "get 'em next time." Yesterday afternoon, I received an advance copy of a book called "Good Fishing!" - and as quickly as I opened it to the first page a blinding glimpse of the obvious leapt off the first page of the book. |
| Time to Play in Palma Sola Bay Just a little bit south of the Bradenton’s Memorial Avenue Causeway, off the northern end of Sarasota Bay, is a diverse fishing habitat known as Palma Sola Bay. There, one has access to miles of productive shorelines ringed with oyster bars and mangrove points. Great schools of mullet are often seen working through the area, almost always stalked by hungry populations of redfish and snook. |
| The New Science of Aging: Live Long, Fish Long I suspect that you, like me, have a passion for your fishing. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be viewing this web site. If I were to tell you that there’s a good chance that you could fish into your 80’s and beyond, feeling as if you were in your fifties, would that increase the passion? It should according to Dr Harry Lodge and his star patient and co-author (“Younger Next Year”) Chris Crowley. |
| Spring Gulf Grouper Digging The grouper—a brawny and tasty sub-tropical species found in waters throughout the Southeast U. S. and many areas of South and Central America. Without question it is Florida’s favorite seafood species. The fillets from this member of the sea bass family are firm, white, and with a very mild flavor. Most aficionados will tell you that grouper makes the best fried fish sandwich, but is also wonderful grilled broiled or fixed with any other cooking method you choose. |
| Any Luck? How many times has another fly fisher asked you this question? How do you answer? A short, yes, or no, is usually not in order. It can be one of those rare days when almost anything works, but more frequently an accurate answer would involve considerable detail. “Caught three browns on a size sixteen blue wing olive,” tells us something, and could be an acceptable response. |
| Snook Seeking Their Comfort Zone It’s ironic isn’t it? The official state fish of Florida is the sailfish. Yet if the powers that be had to revisit that decision, there’s no doubt that today they would anoint the snook for that high honor. Where most other species are “groceries,” somehow the snook commands a kind of reverence from Sunshine State anglers reserved for very few other fishes. That’s why there is so much concern for this sub tropical species during these cooler months of year. |
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