Lake El Salto is Mexico’s hottest Florida-strain bass factory. A glimmer of light silhouetted arid foothills as we motored through flooded timber and around a few small islands into the main arm of the big lake.

Florida Sportsman member: cnunez3024 Ran out to about 400-500 feet looking for birds. Within 20 minutes, we saw 8 birds diving down like crazy. We tossed some cut ballyhoo where they were diving and then BOOM. We had a fish on within 10 seconds.

Florida Sportsman Member: Billy The skies were clear as a bell and the sun was beating down. Duane had a few spots to try. First nice fish was a 21 inch red, then I got a 23 incher. We lost a couple more then Duane hooks a decent snook[...]

A primer on the favorite flats habitat. They say Inuit people can identify seven different kinds of snow. There are almost that many kinds of sea grass on Florida’s flats, but if you can tell the difference between just three varieties, it’s likely to make you a considerably better angler.

For those teams braving a rough crossing to Bimini, the First Annual Billfish Bonanza this past weekend was worth the chop with sails, blues, dolphin and tuna waiting for action.

Florida Sportsman member: arunram That was my second offshore trip and I felt like I was in a dream. That water was cobalt blue!! I would never forget this trip in my life. The mahi mahi jumping and tail walking in the air was a beautiful sight to see[...]

Florida Sportsman member: Ruff One She looks at me and says ” seas are down, wind is down, cobia are biting, get off your a–, get your stuff together and lets get out here!” She doesn’t have to twist my arm much for me to respond. In thirty minutes we were at the ramp and rolling. No messing around on this trip..

Chain pickerel, or jack, are the ruin of shiners and fingers, but great fun nonetheless. How often have you heard “Oh, crap! It’s a bass,” from your buddy when his fish jumps in the middle of a dogged battle?  That’s right.  Not very often. In our Bizzaro world fishermen indeed prefer the safe, predictable largemouth to hooking our freshwater barracuda, pike of the south, the far more spectacular, exciting and yes, somewhat-dangerous pickerel.

May is prime for largemouth bass on fly. One of the coolest sights in Florida fly fishing is a largemouth bass blasting a bug. Even cooler is a “toilet flush” when a big one sucks it down.

Good fly casting demands proper elbow position. I have long been a Lefty Kreh casting disciple. Lefty set the traditional fly casting world on its ear in the 1970s with his then-controversial teachings.

During this Florida Sportsman Seminar, Yo-Zuri’s George Large, the man in charge of product development for the company, shows us a few differences between straight-body lures and jointed-body lures. Large covers the different actions of each lure as well as when each should be applied.

Florida Sportsman member: INTREPID377 These fish were very finicky and we had to follow them for extended periods to get a strike. They were gorging themselves on flying fish and had tuna sized flocks of birds over them. We could shadow the fish at trolling speed and watch them lazily cruise by the boat.

It is a dream of mine to take a weekend-to-weekend, nine-day trip from one end of the Florida Keys to another, targeting permit exclusively. I would begin on the flats of Biscayne Bay, nearly in the shadow of downtown Miami.

It’s the annual spring fling—the snowbirds leave and kingfish arrive. Not that anyone along the Central Gulf Coast is shooing away our northern visitors, but just about the time their cool season visits are wrapping up, local anglers start preparing for the spring king run.

Get down with a floating line. We prefer to fish topwater flies like Gurglers and similar patterns on 7- to 9-weight outfits and weight-forward floating lines. But, there are times when it’s more effective to fish the bottom, as in deeper creeks, potholes and channels.

I studied the water closely—innocent shades of green and brown—but there was nothing there, not even with polarized sunglasses. The flat deepened into three or four feet and seemed completely empty, but apparently it hid one of the fiercest predators found in salt water.