A compass can be helpful in maintaining your orientation on those wide-open spaces, and GPS makes the whole thing a snap. With GPS you don’t really need a marker; hit the “Man Overboard” (instant position fix) button, and you can return again and again. If action at the first spot peters out and you go on to find another, you hit the MOB button again, and the new position assumes priority. Again, all kinds and sizes of fishing boats ply the trout flats in Florida, and so many of them are indeed equipped with GPS. And even the johnboat crowd can easily acquire an economical, handheld model. (Check “Pocket-Size Powerhouses” by FS editor Jeff Weakley, in the Turning It On seminar in the Feb. ‘06 issue of Florida Sportsman.

Another good reason to take note of your boat’s tacking direction is so you can set a particular drifting direction. Aiming the bow right means you will drift right. Turn around to aim left and you will drift that way—roughly, of course, but you can at least head in the direction that seems most likely to produce, perhaps because of patchier and more fishy-looking flats, or perhaps because an opposite tack would carry you off the flats and into deep water. Of course, whenever you turn the boat around, it means you will also have to swap sides for your fishing.

Given a decent breeze, drift fishing on the grassflats is pretty sure to pay off in some sort of action, but for anglers who apply a little method to their drifting, it will surely pay higher dividends.

FS