This Year’s All Summer Long Tournament; Kingfish, Dolphin, and Wahoo. Pick your days, Pick your inlet. June 21 – August 17. Weigh in daily at Conchy Joe’s Jensen Beach, FL. Join fans and families at each day as teams converge by land or sea to weigh their best catch. Happy Hour is from 3-6 and the chefs stand ready to prepare the days bounty. Enjoy a salty afternoon, maybe even enter a hermit crab race or stay for the reggae band! For Tournament Rules visit: www.KDWShootout.com

Schedule

(all events are at Conchy Joe’s Jensen Beach)

Kickoff Party and on-site registration June 21st, 4-8pm
Bring your teams! All hands on deck for the party that starts the Summer Tournament Season. Giveaways, raffles, and tournament buckets crowd the tables as teams register.

Captain’s Meeting 7pm June 21st
Captains meet in the Raw Bar Room for a quick rundown of the rules. Captains at this time have the opportunity to ask the rules committee any questions or mention any concerns related to the tournament.

First Day of Fishing June 22nd
Boats can leave the inlet of their choice at safe light. Always be sure to declare
by 8pm the night before any day of Summer Shootout fishing. Weigh in from 4-7

Weigh scale opens at 4pm June 22nd

Weigh scale open daily from 4-7pm
Families and fans are invited to come enjoy Conchy Joe’s famous happy hour while they wait for the tournament boats to arrive. Cheer on your favorite team during the White’s Tackle weigh-in, and stay for the party sure to follow as we celebrate the days big catch and trade our best fish tales.

Last Day of Fishing/Shootout Day Aug 17th

Scale officially closes at 7pm

Awards at 8pm
Cj’s Old Florida Lounge is going to pack out as we celebrate the Summer’s Top Catches. Cash Prizes for 1st-5th place, Trophies for largest of each species, Top Male, Top Female, and Top Junior anglers.

Over $23,000 in Payouts 1st 10k, 2nd 7k, 3rd 5k, 4th 1k, 5th $450 based on 100 teams entered.

Solving the jumping enigma with flies.

Perhaps the lowly mullet deserves similar consideration. Once these shiny critters lose their bait shop image, what’s left is a scrapper that’s certainly more fun to catch on ultralight fly gear than it is to stack in a Cedar Key smokehouse. Anyway, before anyone contemplates such leaps in consciousness, they’ll want to stock up on a few groceries. But this time, it won’t be for dinner.

Okay, skeptics, let’s look at mullet a little more sympathetically. Certainly these mid-sized dynamos don’t have a reputation for destroying tackle but I suppose if you tallied all the soft-tissue injuries attributable to say, catching bonefish or seatrout on fly gear, you wouldn’t have much of a list either. So if you intend to go after mullet with a drag-equipped reel, go easy. There’s plenty of pinpoint casting involved and more than a few broken tippets, but what goes on beyond that transcends pure technology.

What’s it like to catch mullet on flies? You won’t hear that question asked very often but who among us hasn’t watched these fish jump and wondered?

For your information, catching mullet happens to be a hoot. Supposedly, fly fishermen in other countries pursue various mullets that strike flies aggressively but local anglers consider our domestic species lock-jawed due to some curious eating habits. Nonetheless, it’s time to strip away the scales of ignorance since nowadays, thanks to the introduction of ummm…”vegetable nymphs,” even beginning fly casters can catch mullet until they’re sick and tired of it. Incidentally, I don’t have to remind anyone that this is break-through stuff.

You’ll find two mullet species in Florida. Both hit flies. The black variety grows slightly larger than its streamlined silver cousin and if you ask any Florida cracker, you’ll learn that black mullet are for eating while silvers are bait. Personally, I like catching the bigger, hard-hitting blacks. That doesn’t shed much light on the mystery, though.

In a word, mullet are weird. Their unique behavior discourages anglers from the get-go. If I’d had something fancier to fly fish for early on, I’d probably be doing it instead. Mullet are considered prey rather than predators. Something you catch in a net to catch something bigger and better. Let’s face it-we think mullet jump because they’re being chased, though at times, they seem to be having fun. Whatever the reason, nobody ever considers getting one to jump at the end of a fly line.

I’ve tried to learn more about the habits of these enigmatic fish. In the end, it hasn’t amounted to much. Give it a chance. If you’re still with me, let me set the scene. It’s sunset in suburban Fort Lauderdale. The daytime horn honking and hustle are finally beginning to melt onto a morass that teeters visually between condominium stucco and the ersatz rainforest landscaping. The breeze puffs, sending leaves to the surface of my backyard canal, which happens to be one of the few natural drainages left behind by the developers. The ocean’s a dozen miles away, but the water here is slightly salty. In spite of its tidal influence, my canal conjures visions of paddlewheels rather than counter-rotating props. Before I surrender to the daydream, a fish plucks a blossom from the film.

The Mulleting Hour has finally arrived.

Quietly, K.C. Smith tosses a handful of oatmeal in the canal after spitting in his palm so some will stick together and sink. Meanwhile, I tear bread slices into quarters. Swirls erupt as fish attack floating crusts. Then, a mullet free-jumps near the opposite seawall. Perhaps he’s reconnoitering. No one knows exactly why mullet do this; perhaps it’s pure whimsy or maybe just fun. We pick up our rods. Within minutes, mullet schools race around between crusts. We cast ahead of the splashes in an attempt to lead the school without success. Even in such syrupy settings, it seems frustration has its place. At first, the fish are too engrossed to pay heed to small flies, so we quit casting and wait. The bread will be gone soon and hopefully, the mullet will become more amenable to our offerings. The swirls finally subside, and we cast.

Tense seconds pass before K.C.’s strike indicator plunges beneath the surface. It’s a powerful hit, by something legitimate. K.C.’s little rod bends, line slips through his fingers, his reel screeches and the mullet jumps. It’s only then, while he remains oblivious to several dumbfounded gawkers, that K.C. finally laughs.

Mullet fishing with flies, at least with any hope of success, is a fairly recent preoccupation. According to rumor, several of fly fishing’s early legends may have caught one here and there but since these catches were supposedly made with wet flies, I’d wager most were accidental. As a point of interest, I once nailed a monster black mullet squarely in the mouth with a 4-inch Phillips Multi-wing. No kidding, he completely swallowed the streamer. Yet if you managed to count the mullet that saw my flies over the years, that catch equates to a single confirmed strike out of ten million presentations. And tales of mullet banging big Deceivers meant for snook under bridges have bounced around, too. Accident or opportunism? Whatever, the secret to catching mullet is cutting to the chase by finding out what they eat then matching it.

Mullet feed like any other fish, via the front end. If you had the inclination to follow a mullet around, you’d eventually see him sifting through the bottom ooze for organic matter and maybe when the light was low, grabbing a few leaves off the surface. He feeds, certainly, but his choice of diet makes him a vegetarian. This in turn means that if you want to catch him, you’ll need a different sort of fly. Plant life isn’t exactly flashy. If you sit around waiting to attract mullet to some sort of inert green thing, you’ll end up with a good case of fanny fatigue. Mullet nip rather than tear at vegetable matter, so you’ll need a small fly. If you carry this argument to its conclusion, you can see that locating a No. 14 Plantmaster in a cloudy ditch is like finding a cracker crumb in a shag carpet. In other words, you’ll need a little help. Like you’ll get via the miracle of chum.

Once you understand the mullet’s basic diet, plan the menu. However, before heading to your lawn mower or your grocery’s vegetable counter, consider what canepolers have known for years: Oatmeal, bread, and batter mix were all plants at one time. They also happen to be a lot easier to store, and to imitate, than St. Augustine grass clippings. Evidently, the mullet agree and that’s why our canal “professionals” turn to ordinary bread, oatmeal, or even good ol’ Bisquick whenever they want a few mullet for the skillet.

Ah, Dixie! There’s something to be said for sleepy rivers and lazy days. And since nothing fits the canepole scenario better than floats and doughballs, it follows that similar logic works for fly fishermen, providing that the most effective fly patterns imitate milled vegetable prod ucts. From a design standpoint, my favorite mullet flies imitate dissolving bread. I fish them beneath strike indicators but unlike conventional bobber-lobbing, I make pinpoint casts.

Long ago, I learned that mullet schools migrated south along our beaches, or in the Intracoastal Waterway at certain times of year. I also recognized that these were nervous fish, far too agitated to feed. What I didn’t understand was that once mullet get wherever they are going, serious feeding commences. Every winter after their migration, schools of 1- to 6-pound mullet invade the canals and creeks near Everglades National Park, parading up and down the banks in plain view. Take a look at the Tamiami Trail canal from Ochopee to the Port of the Islands; if you watch the individual fish, you’ll get the impression they’re basically chewing away at nothing. If you ask me, these white-lipped sippers are actually vacuuming microscopic plant matter from the water. That’s feeding in a sense, which means they can be caught.

Local fishermen definitely have their number. Whenever I’m poking around after snook and tarpon, I watch the canepole fishermen fill their buckets as oatmeal boxes empty. In defense of this type of sport, fishing over chum isn’t any different than working a hatch except that here, you control the “bugs.” Yep, if they’ll rise to grain, they’ll strike flies. That’s providing, of course, that the flies are properly tied. Whenever you toss bread upon the water, it breaks down. Avid trout fly tyers know that synthetic fibre antron has a refractive index similar to that of water. In the drink, antron looks like dissolving bread. Or a milled oat. Using antron for mullet flies is a natural, considering that in addition to its more esoteric properties, the fibre sinks. I tie my Yeastie Beasties (like the name?) by simply wrapping antron yarn around a No. 14 Sproat hook. In order to present my flies at the proper depth, I suspend them approximately a foot beneath a typical strike indicator. Just for the record, I tie two other carbohydrate patterns-one with a tail and “thorax” I call the Bisquick Nymph (brand-name infringement?) and an-other, whose name for the sake of delicacy, I’ll omit. Both are similar to the Beastie, except one is tied from polypropylene in order to float (for use just before dark).

I arrived late one day for an hour’s fishing. The sky was overcast so the fish came up immediately. Within a few minutes, I was into my first black mullet, a fat 3-pounder. Afterwards, several others like it followed in quick succession. After an hour, I decided to take a breather. It was during this break that I noticed several unusually large boils that I originally discounted as the work of turtles. Eventually I decided to return to fishing. The mullet began swirling again in response to more bread and once again, I cast. I didn’t have long to wait. I raised my rod to set the hook, and the fly line literally shot through my fingers. To my surprise, whatever I’d hooked proceeded to run off all the fly line and an appreciable amount of backing. Since I was using a 4X tippet testing at six pounds, I wasn’t worried. But a few minutes later, after being forced to shimmy around a chain-link fence and stumble over a picnic table in order to keep up, I started having my doubts. It became a carnival of errors. My fly line caught on an overhanging tree branch but I managed to work it free after some fancy footwork and continued chasing after a mullet that by now, I was convinced I’d snagged. But unlike most foul-hooked fish, the mullet didn’t slow down. By now I’d run a hundred yards from the fence to the guest parking lot, only to discover that this baitfish still had plenty of moves left, at times refusing to budge. In the end, I got him close enough for a look. There beneath me lay a fish coal-black and as big around as a child’s football. A true leviathan of his species. I popped the leader in order to set him free, not knowing exactly how much he weighed, except that it was a great deal more than the 6-pound tippet could hoist.

I don’t hook monster mullet like that every time out. However, enough infiltrate the bread line to keep me on my toes. Sometimes other fish come too, which reminds me of the time I lost an entire fly line to a monster sheepshead we’d named Bis-marck. That’s another story of course but for now, let’s get to the specifics of this one, which includes the wherefore of catching mullet on flies. My best advice would be to find a location where mullet gather unmolested and try chumming. Incidentally, wherever you see them foraging with sand grains spilling from their gills is a sure bet. Give it a shot at twilight. You’ll find out soon enough whether you’ve picked a winner.

Would-be mulleteers don’t need fancy tackle. Just about any light rod matched with click-drag reel will do. However, long leaders tapering to 6-pound test or less are a required item, as are fine-diameter floating fly lines. Mullet evoke freshwater fly fishing’s folksy side but casting accuracy is just as critical here as it is while bonefishing. So is the ability to get off a quick cast. Keep in mind that there’s nothing easy about catching mullet on flies. It’s just a lot of fun.

Admittedly, fly fishing for mullet is a personal addiction. I don’t suspect anyone will open a mullet camp, or if you’ll pardon the pun, a mullet school in the suburbs. Or that “Mulletwear” will show up on the canal banks. I feel, however, that the thousands of fly fishermen who either reside in or visit Florida might consider mullet as a viable alternative when all else fails, or when you only have an hour or two to kill. I think you’ll agree that with a little imagination, one man’s baitfish can easily resurface in another’s sportfishing bacchanal.

Tying the Bisquick Nymph

Ready to give this craziness a try? This is a top fly and a cinch to tie. And it doesn’t need refrigeration! First, lay a strand of white antron yarn (ask your local fly shop to order it) along the shank of a No. 14 Mustad 3906 Sproat hook. Allow a short length to extend beyond the bend. Tie the rest down by wrapping white 8/0 tying thread forward to a point directly behind the hook eye. Wind the antron around the hook shank in order to form a football-shaped body. Bring the antron forward and pull down in order to form “legs” before tying off behind the eye. Trim the tail and legs to 1/16-inch length. That’s it.

Originally Published Florida Sportsman Feb. 2002

Recent fishing reports from “No Motor Zone” anglers from all regions around the state.

Ft. Lauderdale Blackfin Tuna

Florida Sportsman Member: Captain Yak

Peddled out with no live bait. Just trolled a plug out to the deep waters and almost snagged a huge sea turtle. Was able to luckily get my line off the turtle without hooking him or putting him under any pressure. Got out to 140 feet and hooked up on a decent bonnie. Threw him back and went to 160 feet.

Immediately hooked up and this fish was a monster. Checking the time on my video, it took my drag for over a minute straight. As it got closer, I realized that I had a monster bonnie. Got him in, but he was so worn he didn’t make it back in the drink.

Switched up Jigs to get away from the bonito. On my second drop and I feel a light hit. I Set the hook and the fish is not really fighting. I get him to the surface and realize I have a jumbo blackfin tuna. I worked him real slow just before bringing him on the yak. He saved his fight for when I had him on board.

Click here to read the full forum report.

Dania Beach King and Wahoo

Florida Sportsman Member: drichard1986

Launched at sunrise and headed out solo with some gogs swimmin happy in the livewell. Got out to 185 feet, not much current. I caught a few almacos on the jig and then my gog gets whacked. A few good runs and i land a nice 25 pound smoker king. Went out deeper in search of some dolphin and tuna where i found some nice weeds in 380 feet or so. Pulling up to the weeds a school of small dolphin start going crazy and at the same time my gog goes off. At first I though i had a schoolie but after it ran 400 yds off my reel i knew it was something serious! About an hour battle of tug-a-war I get a glimpse of the stripes! A few minutes later I sink the gaff in its head and struggle to pull her in the yak! weighed in at a little over 61 pounds

Click here to read the full forum report.

Backcountry Grand Slam

Florida Sportsman Member: evergladeskid243

Loaded the Slayer 14.5 up around 11:30 and decided the day wasnt over just yet and that I would go check out a new backcountry spot up in north Ft Pierce. Got some lunch and killed some time while the hottest part of the day passed. Got to the launch spot and set off towards the spot. Got there and started exploring every inch of it with the super spook jr. Landed a baracuda and then my lure gets hit by something that instantly breaks the line, bummer my favorate lure is gone only 5 min in! I tie on a mirroLure topwater prop bait and continue on. I hook into what I thought was a snook, but turned out to be a nice Redfish! Gave a hell of a fight in a foot of water, trying to catch me in the mangroves the entire time.

Throw off a mangrove point and something big hits the lure but dosnt stick which sends the lure flying back at me and tangling my line on itself forcing me to retie. Retie the lure with 25 pound florocarbon this time instead of 20 and cast back to the same spot and it gets inhaled! I set the hook good, anticipating a big jump, but it doesnt jump. It heads straight for the Mangroves so i pull harder and then it jumps… a giant snook again!

Click here to read the full forum report.

Mosquito Lagoon Trout

Florida Sportsman Member: Stalker1211

Went out Saturday with friends Austin (fish4reds) and Tammy for a little recon during this “Brown Tide” craze everyone is talking about. Indeed, the water clarity is poor, and the water quality is suffering as well. But Mother Nature will always find a way to adapt.

The wind kept switching directions: South to South East to South West. Then all of a sudden, the wind stopped. Tons of mullet appeared, and more tails started popping up. Then I noticed these tails had spots all over them. These aren’t Reds, they are giant Trout! With slick glass calm conditions and within 40 feet from these tails, I grabbed my Slayer Lure SSB with a little Pro Cure Ladyfish Scent and pitched it past a few tails. Of course, the minute I stop paying attention I get thumped. Set the hook into what felt like a solid brick wall.

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South Florida Mahi & Blackfin

Florida Sportsman Member: NELBAG

Switched it up a little bit today and launched further north than usual. Making our way out to blackfin country, I picked up a small one on my deep plug. Put him on ice and continued out. Two minutes later my shallow plug gets hit, I look back and see a cow in the air. My first thought is “cool, but she’s gonna pop off the trebles.” To my surprise she held on and I got her into the Hobie. I ended up with 5 blacks, mahi and few bonita.

Click here to read the full forum report.

Ft. Pierce Inshore Slam

Florida Sportsman Member: Ginzu

I rolled out this morning to get a little time on the water, since I have to work an evening shift today. I had visions of landing another Cobia after seeing my boy’s slob from yesterday. Well, it didn’t take long. I had a 25 pound Cobia decide to hit my Yozuri deep diver after I got out past the second bar. Fought a short fight and had him yak side. Hit him with the gaff and he flips out doing the gator roll. In the process he slips off the gaff and bent out the treble on the lure and off he swam. I was livid. Cussing at no one for hours. Pulled up one trophy snapper on a spot, then moved to another pulling the only live bait I had, a big hardtail. Well somehow he wiggles off, so now I am stuck pulling nasty cigsicles I had. On the way to our famed Trigger hole I see some birds working the water pretty hard. I start heading that way when I notice an odd thump on the King rig

Click here to read the full forum report.

Ft. Pierce Inshore Slam

Florida Sportsman Member: evergladeskid243

Met up today with Nick (ShallowWaterAssassin on the FS forum), launched and headed towards one of my favorite flats that has been producing lately. Found the mullet and we began working the schools with topwaters. No more than five minutes in, Nick gets a huge explosion on his topwater but it didn’t stick unfortunately. I finally get a nice hit but it didn’t stick, so I slowed the bait down and sure enough here comes a huge wake behind the bait. The bait gets nailed, fish on! The fish takes me on a nice little ride before I landed a slob redfish, measuring right at 29 inches. It probably would have measured at 30 inches if its tail wasn’t so chewed up.

Click here to read the full forum report.

Exploring Kismet

Florida Sportsman Member: jocofi

I came up empty for the day but the wife got a few nice sized trout. Probably because I was paddling while she fished and napped. My buddy had no problem killing it with a few large reds(26″,28″), one 21 inch snook and a hand full of trout. Most of the fish were picked up along a newly explored path. Can’t wait to get out and explore more spots.

Click here to read the full forum report.

Maiden Voyage Snook

Florida Sportsman Member: evergladeskid243

I located and purchased a Slayer 14.5. Picked the boat up yesterday and took it out this morning to hit up some of my favorite flats in Fort Fierce. Got on the water around 6:30 and paddled out to some mullet schools that were getting busted on by snook. Hooked and lost a fish on a super spook jr. but then I got one to stick. Landed the barely slot snook got some quick picture with it and the new yak. I was super pumped. Good way to break the Slayer in!

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“Smoker” Kings off Pompano Beach

Florida Sportsman Member: meckert

Another great morning. Sunny, wind was down, no Surf…Perfect! As soon as I got to 150 feet my gog gets slammed! I knew it was a “smoker” by the run it took. 20 minutes later when I got him to the yak I was in 300 feet! Heck of a fight. Decided to release him (hopefully someone catches him this weekend!) I estimated him to be about 30 to 35 pounds. Around 10:30 decided to call it a day ( never caught anything after 10:30 anyways ) When I got to 85 feet and my rod goes off again. This time I hear a big splash, so I’m thinking Sail…but knew quickly it was another “Smoker” when it ripped off 200 yards in a matter of a few seconds.

Click here to read the full forum report.

Pompano Beach Amberjack

Florida Sportsman Member: Pottymouth

Hit up Pompano scouting for the tourney, meet up with Bobby and his old man and decided to head out together, it was a nice launch but I knew it was gonna get ugly fast. Meet up with Larrythelobsterman ( I think JetskiLarry is a better name) out in deeper water. As we made our way to my fav wreck, I noted a nice little rock pile and marked it. We made it to the wreck and first drop fish on Bobby hooks up as well. It was good fight and then my leader popped right at the knot . I switched rods and by the second drop I had fish on, tearing line off my reel had to palm it a few times[...]

Click here to read the full forum report.

Pompano Beach King & Grouper

Florida Sportsman Member: Poseidon10/31

Took the yak off Pompano since I’ve had good luck up there. Seas were less than 2 feet with a north breeze. Just past the third reef there was nice rip and I put a gog out. Saw a couple kings launch out of the water probably 5-10 feet in the air. Pretty awesome to see. I paddled that way and got bit. There was a sharp tug and then nothing… I opened the bail thinking it was a short strike and the fish would come back for the rest. After 10-15 seconds of nothing I reeled up the slack to find dead weight on the other end. There was no tug, no run, just dead weight. I didn’t even think it was a fish until I dragged it in 50 yards to the yak. Then the king took off and decided to fight.

Click here to read the full forum report.

Pine Island Topwater Bite

Florida Sportsman Member: Bobbkkat

Launched out of Pineland marina this morning and was in the rain right away. We started to get into trout just out of the marina using topwaters. The fish were nailing the unfair lures dawgwalker 110 in the pearl olive w/red head. Those bites were some of the most violent trout bites I have ever seen. I caught quite a few trout, and I even caught a 20 inch and a 22 inch trout right after each other. We moved towards the trees and started getting hits right away. We had a few nice reds explode on topwaters but couldn’t connect with any. Finally I had one boil on it right in front of my kayak and then it boiled again and inhaled the bait three feet in front of my kayak.

Click here to read the full forum report.

Tuna Time

Florida Sportsman Member: NELBAG

Launched in Boynton this morning anticipating to dodge storms throughout the day. To my surprise, I didn’t get a rain drop on me. I Worked a jig from 200-240 feet targeting areas that hold tuna this time of year. By the time I hit skycliff, I had 4 blackfins on ice and lost one sail to a break off. Soon after, forum member Blazing Reels comes out of the blue and decides to tag along for the rest of the day. We continued to work our jigs with good success. Blazing got on some mahi and lost a sail that hit his jig . By the end of the day I ended up with 14 blackfins…one at 18 pounds.

Click here to read the full forum report.

Plenty of Action Out of Kismet

Florida Sportsman Member: jocofi

After reading a recent post my friend and I needed to make another trip to the Kismet launch. This is in north cape coral.

The tally for the day was:
Reece, 1snook (22 inches), 2reds (21 & 22 inches, infinite trout( largest was 21 inches) and 4 flounder.

Josh, 3snook (16, 15 and 17 inches), infinite trout(largest was 18 inches) and a Pompano (see picture for size) The Pompano was a new addition to my caught species fishing list.

Click here to read the full forum report.

Double Ling Up

Florida Sportsman Member: Red Fish

The plan was to head out to the 2nd color change and look for ling as we headed east. We dragged cigs hoping to pick up a smoker but no dice.

I decided to head out a little deeper and see if we could find any bottom to drop on. I drifted over some hard bottom and flipped my flounder jig and immidiately slammed. I was worried I had a jack cause it was kicking my tail. After about 7-8 minutes, I pulled a nice red up. I looked beneath him and there was the first ling of the day mixed in with this massive school of reds. I moved on trying to get back with the school when my other rod with the cig on started screaming. I first thought king but then realized it was probably another red. But with no head shakes my hopes were high it was a ling. After about 30 minutes I gaffed this guy. He weighed 27 pounds.

Click here to read the full forum report.

Bonito Bonanza

Florida Sportsman Member: Poseidon10/31

There was an all day feeding frenzy over the third reef stretching as far as the eye could see. Mostly bonito or little tunnys with some blue runners and mackerel mixed in. I had a goggle eye down deep that got crushed and cut off after a screaming run. The fish were keyed in on these little 1 inch baits (not sure what kind exactly) and paid no attention to my pilchards. Tried a couple top water baits with no bites til I tied on a Shimano Waxwing. I was hooking up every other cast with the waxwing. I kept looking for a blackfin tuna mixed in there somewhere but no takers. Still, it was fun to keep a tight line. Ended up with a small spanish mackerel and around a dozen of these guys.

Click here to read the full forum report.

North Biscayne Trout Bite

Florida Sportsman Member: Pmoconnor89

I decided to try my luck on the grass flats just south of 195 this morning. Got on the water just as the sun was coming up with 3 dozen shrimp. Tried some topwater baits to start things off but only one small trout wanted to play. After 15 minutes I switched to the go-to popping cork and it was non stop action from then on. I literally blew through all 3 dozen shrimp in about an hour. The majority of the trout were 16-18 inches, only had two little runt trout all day. Didn’t get any needlefish or cuda’s all day, and I was really surprised by that! The grovers were in full force too, caught 8 or 9 in the 6-10 inch range. After I used all the shrimp and only got 2 that were just about 20 inches, I sabiki’d up some pinfish. Even caught a couple trout on the sabiki too. Using the palm size pinfish I caught with the sabiki I managed to get 3 trout over 20 inches, and lost one that was over 25 inches.

Click here to read the full forum report.

Placida Snook and Trout

We met up when I got off work Sunday morning at a launch in the Placida/Gasparilla sound area. I had success here early in the week so we figured it would be worth a shot. I tried to offer as much input and knowledge as possible… stuff like “I’ve caught a redfish on this dock using this bait…” “Snook like to hang out there…” “a faster retrieve here gets more trout but if you slow it down…” It wound up paying off because within about an hour he had a decent slam including his biggest trout ever at 18 inches. My luck was almost non existent for most of the morning, as I caught a handful of trout with only one even being slot sized.

[...] I knew it was a snook right off the bat. It gave a nice headshake above the water and I realized it was a bit bigger fish. It was a perfect scenario, the fight started about 50 yards from the closest dock and about 25 yards from the closest submerged mangrove roots, so there wasn’t much chance of the fish getting in to anything and breaking me off. After a lot of drag screaming I got the fish to the side of the boat and asked my brother to come over and get a picture as I knew it would at least be competing for my biggest snook ever.

Click here to read the full forum report.

Pompano Beach Offshore Meet-Up

The meet-up turned out well, a lot of kayakers showed up. The weather was nasty! Wind was non-stop blowing from the SSE, and every bit of 3 to 5 feet. Hats off to everyone that stuck it out and continued to fish throughout the day. Those conditions do not make it easy to fish but some fish were caught. Congrats to kayakangler AKA Joe Kraatz with the biggest combo of the day (nice king and 31 pound AJ). We started fishing in 250 feet where the AJ was landed [...]

Click here to read the full forum report.

Dania Beach King

Florida Sportsman member: drichard1986

Got to the beach at sunrise and saw Rob there so we headed out together. He had his sail on the ocean kayak and damn does that thing haul. I dropped a gog out at 100 feet on the way out and 2 minutes later the drag starts to scream… After a 20 minute fight of drag screaming, I pull up a fat king. Rob headed out deep and landed a few small dolphin and a king. I stayed in, bouncing on the shallow wrecks in search of a cobia but just got a few almacos. Overall it was a slow day but it was nice to get out.

Click here to read the full forum report.

Navarre Cobia

Florida Sportsman member: Ginzu

Beautiful flat goodness greeted me at the launch. Trolled a cig duster and a deep diver. No taps. Moved on to another spot and decided to drop down the tried and true flounder setup. Thumped the bottom once, and bam! It was on like donkey kong. Fish was running hard, so I cupped the spool to try and slow him down. I Couldn’t put too much pressure on him cause I was rocking my Stradic 5k with 30lb braid. My initial thought was shark, and as I got him within sight, it was none other than the brown bomber.

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Dania Beach Macs and Jack

Florida Sportsman member: Baxter22

Winds and outgoing tide made it look “sporty” like my buddy and mentor Android likes To say. Close to limit of macs using all artificials.They hit everything! Biggest fish trolling 1 1/4 oz spoon. Jack hit ballyhoo on kingfish rig with sinker removed trolling east from towers. The kids said mac bite was over till I used a different jig and got four more in the boat. Did not head out as big waves came in. Knew we were done when surfers showed up.

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St. Augustine Top Water Reds

Florida Sportsman member: cbuckholts

The fishing was a bit slow this morning. We saw few reds really pushing any wakes. After about 20 minutes or so we managed to pick up a red around 17 inches. A few trout here and there climbed on in the kayak. It was around 7:45 and I hung into a 30 inch monster red. He slammed the top water and took off the opposite direction I was facing. He snapped the kayak around the started stripping drag. This fish meant business. After he pulled me at least 50 yards down the creek I was able to get him at least turned around. After getting pulled like a dog sled down the creek I managed to land this monster.

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Reds to Spare

Florida Sportsman member: cbuckholts

We’ve really been catching the reds up here well. They’ve been hanging out in around 3 feet of water early in the morning and later afternoon. I caught a monster 27 inch red and another 29 inch red on top water earlier in the week. I’m heading out to a new spot in the trusty yak to catch some more monsters tomorrow.

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Pompano Beach Dolphin

Florida Sportsman member: drichard1986

Weather was calling for 14 foot seas so me and flats broke decided what the hell lets give it a shot lol. Got a late start but weather started beautiful, 2-3 foot seas with weedlines and blue water. Flats hooked a mahi right away on jig but shook the hook. Few minutes later my live bait gets hit n I land a decent phin… Few more drifts with no luck and the wind kept increasing with seas 4-6 feet we decide to call it a day[...]

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Boynton Beach Dolphin

Florida Sportsman member: NELBAG

Started out on a solo Dolphin trip today, but met Paul in the surf and he asked to tag along. Being the nice guy I am, I said sure. I Hope my kind deed pays off later because Paul hooked this stud not 15 feet from me. First ever in the yak! Congrats!

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Everglades City Jack & Reds

Florida Sportsman member: jvanpelt

Headed down to Everglades City today with the one and only Bonitabob himself. We met up with Woody Callaway of Native Watercraft and Rich Jones (RJVermont) and hit the water a little later than usual. I did a little bit of fishing but was more interested in playing with my new camera than anything else.

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Everglades Paddle Bassin’

Florida Sportsman member: jvanpelt

Drove down to Collier County today to do a little bass fishing. Day started off with a ton of small ones and then just as I was starting to discount this lakes productivity the big girls started to show up.

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Kites and Kayaks

Florida Sportsman member: FLATS BROKE

The thought of flying kites from our kayaks has been in our minds for a while and today we had a perfect opportunity to do so. With a NE wind whipping in at 10-20KTS plus, We had to go.

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1,000 Island Park

Florida Sportsman member: jocofi

We left Kars park headed almost straight out for deeper water. We fished for a while, after only two 10-inch-plus trout, the frustrating puffer fish destroying my gulp, and the wind picking up, we decided to head for cover. My friend said that 1,000 Island Park in Cocoa Beach has miles of mangrove canals to fish. It was a great place. Lots of canals that protected us from the wind. We saw a few small schools of reds that had lock jaw and tons of finger mullet [...]

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Pine Island Catches

Florida Sportsman member: jvanpelt

Headed out today despite the forecast calling for wind and rain. Hit up Pine Island with redfish on the mind. Very quickly that was satisfied and we continued to explore some back creeks out in Pine Island. We all managed quite a few fish, reds, trout, and snook. The best part of my day however was getting good fishing buddy Ken hooked up and watching him land his first ever tarpon.

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Pompano Beach Offshore

Florida Sportsman member:FLATS BROKE

Paddled out from Pompano beach on Sunday at sunrise. Beach was flat. Offshore was nasty. The wind was relentless. First 2 fish that were caught were Black fin tuna by Drichard1986 & Jvanpelt. Both fish were caught on live flat lined Pilchards. I stayed in a little shallower and was able to land a nice size King on a flat lined Goggle Eye in 135 feet. Soon after that I peddled over to KayakAngler to see he landed his first ever grouper and a nice one at that! The grouper was caught on a vertical jig in 250 feet.

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Kismet Snook

Florida Sportsman member: jocofi

So we made it to the Kismet launch (north cape coral) yesterday. It was an awesome trip. I had heard some great stories about the area and the real thing didn’t disappoint. We saw so many fish, some monster reds and snook out there. We made it all the way out to Charlotte Harbor but the wind kept us off the grass flats so we headed back into the mangrove lakes. I was able to pick up one snook and my friend caught one red and one snook. Also there was so much drift wood..I need a bigger yard for all that. I can’t wait to get back out there.

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Everglades Backcountry

Florida Sportsman member: miket1515

Next I decided to do some Fly Fishing in the Everglades Backcountry by myself.Total count for the day. 11 Snook and 6 Tarpon all on flies. Saw some huge Black Drums tailing but they refused my fly.

So after I told my buddy how I did he decided to come along. So we went in my yak towards the backcountry and I showed him what the Everglades backcountry was all about. Of course the backcountry delivered. As we were almost leaving I tossed my paddle tail to some bait jumping in 8 inches of water and my biggest Snook to date was hooked to the end of my line.

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Inshore Miami 20 Pound Jack

Florida Sportsman member: levosgien

Launched off morningside after waiting for the gurds to open the gate 30 minutes late. When I finally get on the water, I see pods of mullet getting hammered by something big. I cast a sub-surface lure to see if I get hit but nothing, so after the third cast I switch to a zara spook. By this time whatever was chasing the bait splits into 3-4 groups and hit the bait hard, by this time I worry these may be dolphins. Next thing I know a wake comes towards me so I cast and walk my dog in front of it and bam! I get hit hard.

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First Red in Chokoloskee

Florida Sportsman member: quatin

It’s that time of the year. Our “annual” weekend trip to Chokoloskee. We rented a lodge at the Chokoloskee Island Park Marina and fished all day Saturday and Sunday morning. The weather was a bit spotty with storms pushing through the area. We had our moments of flat calm throughout the day though. The local residents had a fish fry when we got back from the first day and invited us to some free chow. Can’t find a nicer bunch of folks.

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Pineland Reds & Pompano

Florida Sportsman member: jvanpelt

Went out today with bonitabob and his brother in law for the first time in a long time and slaughtered the fish. Here’s a few pics and I’m sure he’ll be adding his as well. Another great Southwest Florida winter day.

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Offshore Variety

Florida Sportsman member: FLATS BROKE

Well it was a slow weekend for me as I only managed to land one alamaco and a couple Bonita but Mr Joe Hector, tournament director for Extreme had a great weekend and day today. He landed one nice Black fin tuna on 1/5/13, Joe Kraatz (Kayakangler) landed a small mahi (no pic) and this stud of a wahoo the morning of 1/8/13. Both fish were caught on live Pilchards in 180-200 feet of water.

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Dania Beach King

Florida Sportsman member: drichard1986

Got out deep n got 4 or 5 almacos and lost a sail. Then I found a pod of toothy critters that cut off 4 of my jigs back to back. My luck they were all wahoo. Went in to a shallow wreck in 115′ n as soon as I got there my goggle eye gets eaten. It screams out 300 yards of line on first run. After about 15 minutes, I get him in. It’s a jumbo king. I Decide to call it a day and head in.

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Dania Beach Offshore Video Recap

Florida Sportsman member: Pottymouth

Clear water, light current, and low winds, beautiful two days on the water. Dolphin “flipper” all over the place, two big turtles, a huge manta ray, and a hammerhead all came by to say “hi.”

IRL Redfishin’

Florida Sportsman member: Art Vandelay

I was able to get out and do a little kayak fishing yesterday. It was pretty chilly in the morning but it was forecasted to be the calm and warm up in the afternoon. We launched into some super clear shallow water and almost immediately started spotting some slot sized reds. They were really spooky with the clear water and it made it hard to get within casting distance. The water warmed up during the day and we ended up catching most of our fish [...]

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Fall in Flamingo

Florida Sportsman member: Dj Dan Decibel

It has been quite a while since I’ve posted here, I know this report ins’t strictly kayak fishing but most of the fishing was done on the kayak. I figured I post up some of the trips of this Fall. I have been going out on the kayak, Gheenoe, and a friends boat. It has been tough some days to fish with this winter pattern as we are getting days where the wind is blowing all day but if you get those two or three days of nice weather, make them count. Some of my friends are recently getting into the fly fishing scene and I have been taking them on the Gheenoe to catch their first reds, snook, and tarpon on fly [...]

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Topwater Galore

Florida Sportsman member: YakerLG

Woke up and made the long drive down to the Everglades this morning, still a little buzzed from last nights festivities. The wind forecast was calling for 2 to 3 mph winds all morning, and the tide seemed just right-making my two hours of sleep easily forgotten.

The drive down was foggy, and by the time I made it to the ramp the sun had just risen, revealing a beautiful skyline. After having my only two one knockers cracked by redfish on Tuesday, the Skitterwalk was tied on by default. Threw the pink skitter into the mangroves and picked up a nice snook to start the morning. He hit it four times before the rusty trebles stuck [...]

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Dania Beach Sailfish

Florida Sportsman member: FLATS BROKE

Headed out of Dania on the 8th. The conditions weren’t the best, with a straight east wind that made paddling out take forever. Decided I was only going to jig that day I didn’t bring any live bait. Fishing was real slow for me. Ended up catching a perfect size blue runner for live bait in 180 feet of water, tied up a stinger rig real quick and tossed him out. Not even 10 minutes later I get a hit and see it jump.

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Pineland Kayak Catches

Florida Sportsman member: jvanpelt

Headed out today with my Ryan Warden. Bite was a little slower than I expected it to be today but there were a few nice fish caught, we managed a few decent reds, and some trout including the smallest trout I’ve ever seen that popped a trout pattern topwater bigger than him, and I managed to find a nice hole loaded with keeper mangrove snapper [...]

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Flyfishing in the Everglades

Florida Sportsman member: mangohunter11

Been doing quite a bit of exploring fishing with some of my good fishing buddies deep in the Everglades in no man’s land. The paddles are long full of creatures that would not mind having you for dinner or biting you to fill there stomachs but the fishing has been outstanding. Fly-fishing exclusively for these fish has been a challenge but the rewards have been much sweeter! [...]

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Trout North of Heckscher

Florida Sportsman member: mrtopwater

Had a chance to get my wife Stephanie out on the water this morning in “Her Native Mariner”. So after a quick stop at BCFC for some of their ninja mudminnows we were on the water about 8:15 am. We come up on Dreads, spoke with him a minute then we set up to locate the trout. Stef does not get out to fish much so I wanted her to catch plenty of fish. Which she did, we must of caught 40 plus trout in the range of 13 inches to 17 inches. Did not get on any big fish but did manage a few rat reds mixed in. She had a great time and that’s all I was after [...]

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Biscayne Bay Smörgåsbord

Florida Sportsman member: bugdoc

Hit North Biscayne Bay about 0800 looking for whatever. Tried the trout flats for an hour and a half with nothing to show for it but some pinfish-chewed up soft baits. Since bluefish and mackerel had been showing up lately, I headed to the deep channel and tossed on a refurbished crystal minnow. Quickly hook up with a nice Spanish mack, followed a few minutes later by a nice bluefish. The bite died again, so I paddled south of the causeway and got a just keeper size trout and another bluefish [...]

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Flood Tide Catches

Florida Sportsman member: Maverick

Decided to do a little fishing this afternoon with the flood tide. I have not tried flood tide fishing in the middle of the day yet and figured I would give it a try. Was joined by a buddy of mine and we were off by about 1. Pulled up to my first flood flat and saw 1 tail. He then disappeared so we moved to the next flat. Pulled up to the second flat and saw nothing, looked a little more before we decided to just start working the creeks and islands. Then it was on. My buddy was throwing a rootbeer DOA shrimp and flipped up along the grass and I heard his drag start screaming and the yak took off.
After a good little fight we had our first red of the day.[...]

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Paddling Pine Island

Florida Sportsman member: Bobbkkat

Launched at Pine Island this morning with a very strong breeze and some dark clouds. As we launched the kayaks I was wondering if it was going to be worth it, and it was! One my first cast i Had a nice red blow up on the topwater, which was right at the launch! Of course he missed it and we pressed on. We came out on the flats and I hook a really nice fish on the topwater, and pull in a 25-inch trout! That was definitely my personal best in Pine Island [...]

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Who Needs a Flats Boat? A night on the Kayak

Florida Sportsman member: JoupDog1

Dad and I dropped the kayaks in this evening just before 8:00pm. We Paddled over to our first dock light and before I could even get my rod out, dad was already hooked up on a small fat snook! So I skip in and get another fat snook to start things off. Next light there are some larger fish popping in and a few casts later, I’m locked into a better fish. Turns out to be my personal best fat snook. Dad then gets another fat snook that was only slightly smaller than the one I had just got! That’s four fat snook in a row. Then dad breaks the streak with a small common. We Head around to one of our last lights and we quickly pick off two nice snook. Both about 25 inches [...]

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Mingo to Keys Chronicles

Florida Sportsman member: mangohunter11

OK folks, here is a compilation of trips in the recent mouth. I will start with the best. As all epic trips start off, I get a phone call from Chris “Tex” Lewis telling me about an idea of a trip from Flamingo to Islamorada on kayaks as I was driving to work one afternoon. With out hesitation, I say I am in. Minutes later, I get a call from Dj DanDecibel all pumped up about the trip. So for the next 6 days we planned everything out and got all the gear ready. After days of gearing up tying flies and looking at the weather the day of reckoning [...]

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Action-Packed Day off Delray

Florida Sportsman member: Mmusser0

My buddy Justin and I had the day off of work so we decided to head out on the Yaks. After finding some bait we had the yaks in the water around 10:30. Lines in the water about 105 feet and within seconds my buddy Justin spots a 6 foot Hammerhead on one of his baits…

…Total for the day One Hammerhead, 2 Big Dolphin, and Our First Yak Sailfish! Awesome day and so worth the crazy paddle back. Got an awesome gopro video that I edited and put up[...]

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NMZ on Fire, Redfish for Dinner

Florida Sportsman member: Redfish Chuck

After talking with Alan Ryland about the day he and Steve Brand spent on the “NMZ”; the location of our next Boondoggle, I knew I needed to get out there and put hooks in fishes faces! So I met up with Alan around 7:15 a.m. or so, got all unloaded and off we went in search of reds and trout. The wind was light out of the west and the water was very cool already so we knew it would be a bit of a waiting game until the flat warmed up a bit [...]

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Windy Day Snookin’ at Pine Island

Florida Sportsman member: bobbkkat

After a little while my friend hooks up into a 25 inch snook that gets off next to the yak, so I start to work an area near him and I hook into something big! It starts screaming out drag and honestly I thought it was a big jack crevalle at first. But once it started going into the trees and thrashing on the surface I knew it had to be better. I finally get it up next to the kayak and it is a nice snook!

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Slammin’ in Flamingo

Florida Sportsman member: Yak Hard

Had plans to head into Snake Bight this morning, but never made it that far. The bite was on at the ranger dock during a strong sweeping tide letting out of the flats into the little channel there. I anchored up in a sweet spot and started off with a decent shallow water jack on a top water, but a DOA Shrimp was the champion of the day. A slow retrieve with a light lift/drop of the rod tip landed everything for the remainder of the day.

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Cobia Surprise off Canaveral

Florida Sportsman member: Stalker1211

Last weekend, I had the chance to try my hand at something I’ve always wanted to do: hit the beach out of my kayak. My good buds Nick and Jon helped show me the ropes, since they had already fished the beaches before. We launched around 7 a.m., heading straight offshore and growing hairs on our chest as we pummeled through 2 foot swells. They had been telling me all week “Dude, we will just sabiki up a ton of croakers when we get out there to use for bait.” I’m thinking “Hey, croakers are awesome bait; until I see that what they thought were “croakers” were actually horn-bellies, which I thought was trash, but hey, we made lemonade [...]

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Kayak Session Before Work

Florida Sportsman member: HotDragKnep

Myself and AJ a.k.a EastCoastAngler decided to save a little gas money and take out the yaks. We headed out of Stuart and started catching some jacks that were feeding on the big schools of glass minnows. We moved on to some submerged trees and caught a snook that was about 20-inches. We got to our mangrove destination were we had some good bites on topwater, so we decided to net some fingers. Tried for a while before I finally hooked a 35-inch snook that nearly got me into the mangroves [...]

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Hooked on Kayak Fishing

Florida Sportsman member: FSChris

It looks like my love for kayak fishing has finally become an addiction. After becoming the proud new owner of a Wilderness Systems 14 Commander a few weeks back, I have been trying and trying to get on the water. Busy schedule it seems. Finally, about a week ago, I was able to put her on top of the Jeep and head out in search of some reds that had been (and still are) my mind for quite some time [...]

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Hooking Up in Matlacha

Florida Sportsman member: jvanpelt

Went out today with my buddy Josh Harvel (YakNitUp Charters) to Matlacha around 9:30 to catch the 11 a.m. low tide. We immediately were concerned with the wind and with the approaching storm clouds, BUT, we launched anyways. We headed out and were immediately greeted with a very welcome site, TARPON, and man they were everywhere!!! We played around in the canal systems for a little while having a blast watching the tarpon bust our topwaters [...]

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Jumbo BFT’s off Pompano

Florida Sportsman member: kayakangler

Kellan and I got a late start yesterday, we launched off pompano around 9:30 a.m. The waves were crashing pretty hard on the beach but we managed to get out after a good soaking. We headed out to the first wreck and on my first drop with a jig, my line started screaming. I get the fish up to the yak and realize it is a very nice mutton. This is my first mutton on a jig. I must say this was a very nice start to the day [...]

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Estero Bay Get Together

Florida Sportsman member: bonitabob

Some of the folks from the SWFKAA got together for a little fishing in Estero Bay. We arrived at 6:30am and spent the next 30 minutes waiting for the rain that would evenyually cancel the trip. At around 7am, we ran out of excuses and decided to launch. We had Troy (Yaknew), Esteban (CaptBlackbeard), Joe (jcorrigan), Josh (Jfish), Eric (my boy) and me. We launched into surprisingly calm conditions and were instantly on the fish. First up was the trout and they did not disappoint on topwater.

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Paddling for Ft. Pierce Gators

Florida Sportsman member: NELBAG

Finally had a day to fish inshore with no clients or tournaments to worry about. Launch with a 5 to 10 knot wind from the south which became 15 mph by 10 a.m. The south wind and a strong current incoming tide from the north made it difficult to fish. Jacks, blues and a few small trout was about it until 11 a.m. First fish was FAT! 26 inches. Someone has been enjoying all the mullet! Probably one of the largest girths I have seen on a trout that size.

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Mixed Bag at Bayport

Florida Sportsman member: mleach82

With my available fishing weekends quickly narrowing down, decided to head out to Bayport today to see if we could improve upon last weeks trip. Put in around 7:30 to a low tide and steady breeze. Tide wasn’t supposed to be in until 2 p.m. so we had a few hours to kill until the water started moving again [...]

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Big Snook on the Yak

Florida Sportsman member: Chobeeboys

After reading the article on seawall snook, saltwater assasin and I decided to try our luck and work some seawalls in Stuart. We started the day with the last drizzle of the outgoing tide. This morning I decided that I would throw a black and gold Top Dog. While still trying to perfect my walk the dog I was able to hook up with one snook before the tide went slack. As the article stated when the water isn’t moving the fish are not biting. The big gal inhaled my lure about 10 feet in front of my kayak and then lazily let herself get dragged to the yak [...]

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Kayak Lobstering

Florida Sportsman member: quatin

After years of talking about going “lobstering” by kayak, weeks of practicing and the 3rd day trying to catch one. I finally caught my first lobster.

Kellan, Chris and I went to Dania Beach today with our Hookah setups to go lobstering. The storm must have pushed them shallow since we were getting them in ~15 feet. The visibility was pretty poor and I had to surface several times when I lost the reef [...]

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Fishing the IFA Kayak Tour

Florida Sportsman member: Bobbkkat

We fished the IFA kayak tour regional event which was held in Titusville on August 26. We arrived Friday afternoon and fished on the south end of the Banana River with some great results. It was our first time fishing anywhere in this area and I caught my first red there within 20 minutes of hitting the water, I was able to easily see him along the mangroves when I was standing on my Hobie pro angler 12 [...]

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Skinny Water Tails

Florida Sportsman member: mangohunter11

With the last few months of summer looming upon us, Mother Nature has not given up her relentless grasp just yet. With mornings feeling more like an ascent at the summit of Mt. Everest leaving one gasping for air, mid day has brought punishing temperatures that could only be compared to the most hostile places in our solar system. Combined the weather with grueling paddles, endless miles of poling and lighting storms that could only be compared to science fiction movie “War of the worlds” and you begin to wonder what draws fisherman to this inhospitable world [...]

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Dirty Water Days

Florida Sportsman member: Redfish Chuck

Hit the water with my good friend Chris in search of some ML Redfish. At the launch I noticed the water looked alot like coffee with a lot of creamer, well it is that time of the year so off we go. Once we got to the flat we saw pushes near the bank and tails in the thick grass, so we fan out to cover more water.

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Kayak Cobia

Florida Sportsman member: Baxter22

Met up with Andriod this morning for first trip off Dania Pier. He was kind enough to lend me a jigging rod, jig and point me in the right direction. After sunrise broke the ice with small bonito. Followed his lead and kept drifting and jigging. Lost a trigger fish but was good sign. Lost a jig to a mystery break off [..]

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First Kayak, First Redfish

Florida Sportsman member: stanandsnow

I recently purchased a new Hobie AI. Wow, what a blast. I’ve been fishing offshore three times now and I guess the third times a charm. A little background, I grew up fishing in the Keys and other South Florida spots and have come to love offshore fishing. I recently came across the sport of kayak fishing and dove in head first. What a difference [...]

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Kayak Sailfishing with Bananas

Florida Sportsman member: Captain Yak

I ate a banana today which everyone was saying was bad luck for fishing. Even though my luck was doomed, I still decided to go out this morning out of Dania with Redneck Rocket and NewYorker. A couple of new guys also tagged along for their first offshore trip. Grabbed some bait from the beach and headed out [...]

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Hot Water Reds

Florida Sportsman member: Dj Dan Decibel

THE WEATHER HAS BEEN HOT WITH COUPLE OF STORMS AROUND BUT DEFINITELY WORTH IT SOMETIMES GOING WITH THE BAD WEATHER I HAVENT BEEN TAKING MANY PICTURES BUT I HAVE BEEN DOING TONS OF RECORDING. I WILL PUT THE LINK WHERE YOU CAN WATCH A VIDEO I PUT TOGETHER OF SOME OF THE FLY FISHING IVE BEEN DOING. ENJOY THE REPORT!

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Paddle Craft Happenings

Florida Sportsman member: irishjean

Let’s start with the fact that the water temperature was spring cold, 72 degrees at 11am. Caught lots of big Bluefish and plenty of Trout as well. While paddling around I passed over some deep water and a freaking Sailfish (approx. 4ft?) passed under my kayak!!! I just started laughing, that’s a new one for me! Then I caught these two Grouper on the same DOA Shrimp. What a day!

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Clearwater Bull Reds

Florida Sportsman member: abm5926

Got out early and started catching slot reds and small snook and then in caught 2 big snook and 2 bull reds in the afternoon. Caught bulls on cut bait under a cork and big snook on 1/8 oz jighead with z man scented paddlerz. The biggest of the snook is the biggest fish I’ve ever caught on artificials. Caught flounder, snook, redfish, blk drum, and trout. One of the best days I’ve ever had fishing!

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Summertime Tails

Florida Sportsman member: mangohunter11

Summertime fishing can be the most rewarding and most frustrating time to fish south Florida waters. With temperatures soaring well over the hundreds and afternoon thunderstorms just about every day it has been a challenge. Being able to predict the weather and fighting the heat has paid off in my quest for the next thrill seeking adventure [...]

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After Work Blackfin

Florida Sportsman member: FLATS BROKE

Had the itch bad yesterday. As soon as I got off work, 5 p.m., I ran straight to the beach. Paddled out, no depth finder. Managed to get this nice blackfin, at 31 inches.

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Lake O Kayak Bassin’

Florida Sportsman member: shallow water assassin

Just got in from a great day on the lake and figured I would give a report. Got on the water at 6 a.m. and first cast, boom, 2 pound bass on a Big Easy topwater. Got a few more on topwater then swiched to fliping docks with a trick worm as I was zoned out with that my Buddy Ryan gets a 6 pounder on a KVD frog 15 feet away from me.

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Dania Drift, Wahoo!

Florida Sportsman member: pottymouth

Went out this morning with livingthedream and Larry the lobsterman. Hit some nice weeds, couldn’t tell you how deep (no fishfinder) and no lives today so everything was caught on jigs and plugs. Picked up 3 blackfin tuna, caught 3 throw back mahi-mahi, 4 almaco’s, and a bunch of BIG bonito, and called it after landing a 5 foot wahoo [...]

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Tuna Slaying, Kayak Style

Florida Sportsman member: NELBAG

I had forum member davederb and his nephew Devin out with me today to slay some tunas and that we did.

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Check out the the video here.

Kayak Bottom Bouncin’

Florida Sportsman member: drichard1986

Went out of pompano today with a floatilla of other yakers. From what I’ve heard so far it was pretty much a bonita bonanza for most of the people that went. Flats Broke got a blackfin tuna, I ended up dropping a chicken rig down on one of the deep wrecks and hit the vermillion snappers pretty good. Past them around to a few yaks so nobody was over the limit [...]

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Big Tarpon, Little Kayak

Florida Sportsman member: highstrung

I got in between my friend Dale’s little kayak and big tarpon with my video camera yesterday just off the Port Charlotte Beach Complex. We were fishing for snook with 12 pound test and a chrome spook jr. I posted a short under 5 minute video on youtube of some of the highlights called “Dale’s Big Tarpon, Little Kayak”. Dale guessed 80 pounds.

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Check out the video on YouTube. 

Palm Beach Sail

Florida Sportsman member: NELBAG

The one day I forget my Gopro Camera pole I catch this sail that had to jump 20 times with her whole body coming out of the water each time. Thanks to the Spanish speaking Americans for the pic that thought I wanted thier gaff when I was asking for a picture. After 10 minutes revival she swam off strong.

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Kayak Sailfish off Pompano

Florida Sportsman member: Livinthedream

Started the morning early and launched with Chris (frankthetank) around 6 a.m. from Pompano Beach. We were greeted by decent size waves breaking right on the beach. So we timed our launch and got a little wet as we passed through them, luckily without rolling.

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Kayak Fishing Estero Bay

Florida Sportsman member: golflaxfish

We got in last Saturday to breezy, rainy conditions that didn’t seem to let up the whole week. Crazy things happened on Saturday and Sunday, so let’s fast-forward to Monday, and our first fishing day. I guess you could say that it was a learning day, as all I could find was mud bottom and no current…sweet . I did end up accidentally catching a short sheepshead in the cast net, so I won’t count it as a skunk. Anyway, on to Tuesday, and where the fun begins. My uncle Roger and his family were in town, so I was determined to put him on some nice fish, so after an hour or so we moved in search of oysters, current, clean water, and grass…we found it! [...]

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Summertime Beach Snookin’

Florida Sportsman member: FLATS BROKE

Well the beach fishing is phenomenal right now. Decided not to take the kayaks out because of the strong NE wind and current. Tarpon and snook are everywhere on the beaches right now. No matter where you go. We jumped off several tarpon before we landed this nice snook. Using live pilchard with a 3oz pyramid weight to hold the bait in place. After a few pics the snook was released unharmed.

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Saint Augustine Springtime Recap

Florida Sportsman member: Action Kayak Adventures

Has been a fun spring. My clients have been doing great getting back to the fish and able to close the deal on some really nice redfish, flounder and trout. Even some dirty ginclear water days for some close up sight fishing. The weather has been awesome for kayaking with the exception of the occasional south 20 mph afternoon winds [...]

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Sailfish on a Kayak

Florida Sportsman member: FLATS BROKE

Paddled out with Capt.Yak. Headed straight to the wrecks in 250 feet to try and jig up an AJ but not much action going on. Reeled the jigs up and tossed out some live bait on the down rigger set at 60 feet. As I start to head shallow in about 215 feet I get my first hit, 41 inch King. Skinny guy but had the length. As I get into 115 feet my down rigger pops and my reel starts screaming, up comes the sail. 5 minutes later I land this beautiful sailfish.

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After Work Kayak Fishing

Florida Sportsman member: SWCracker

After work yesterday fellow forum member Nolez12 and I headed out to get some fishing time in. Both of us were forum members before all the changes and recently decided to get back on the forum. Anyways, we launched around 6 p.m with a nice incoming tide. I had a nice snook that didnt completely commit along the first wall we fished.

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Fishing the Everglades

Florida Sportsman member: Dj Dan Decibel

Fishing has been pretty good. I have broken a couple of my personal records. Recently I caught my biggest snook at 35 inches, my biggest redfish on fly, and also caught a big black drum. I never got to measure the black drum because he did not fit inside my kayak [...]

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Paddling the Indian River Lagoon

Florida Sportsman member: Redfish Chuck

It’s been a while since I have been able to spend some time on the water, but this past weekend I took advantage of the good weather and set out on a solo trip looking for Redfish and Trout. I hit the launch at day break and worked my way south along the west side of the river [...]

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Stand Up Paddleboard Amberjack

Florida Sportsman member: FLATS BROKE

AJ CAUGHT IN 250FT ON THE JIG, SUP!?! “EXTREME BALANCE”.

Watch the video!

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Memorial Weekend BFT

Florida Sportsman member: Pottymouth

Hit it up all weekend, nice and early, got’em in different depth’s too. Sun was a quick hit and run, it sure was fishy out. Picked up alot more big bonies but still managed 2 BFT [...]

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Kayak Fishing Biscayne Bay

Florida Sportsman member: frankthetank

Me and my bro headed to Biscayne to meet Dave, who was kind enough to show us a hot trout spot. As we paddled out through snapper creek, I trolled a soft plastic and got slammed by a monster snook, which broke off immediately. We kept going and as we rounded the corner Dave spots tailing bones. My bro makes a cast and hooks up [...]

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Kayaking for Miami Exotics

Florida Sportsman member: bonitabob

I asked noted Photographer Doug Stamm to join me on a day trip over to Miami for some Peacock Bass fishing. We left the West coast at 0600 and began the drive. It was tempting to stop at all the canals along the way, but we were on a mission. We arrived after a few short stops at around 0830 and met up with Mike Teixidor. Mike is a good friend and fellow Blue Line Fishing Team member, and he knows Miami Peacock bass.

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Lake Worth Kayak Snookin’

Florida Sportsman member: frankthetank

Woke up early to haul but to Lake Worth. We launched at the snook Island Kayak launch me and my older brother and began our journey. We fished in an out of every nook and cranny of the snook island area nothing but a stingray and bait everywhere. Paddled north seen some sheepies but no connections, we found this nice little sandbar exposed with rock piles next to it so we worked the only lure I ever caught snook on, a Bass Assassin silver chartreuse, hooked up [...]

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Boynton Boys Offshore Report

Florida Sportsman member: CamDawg

Better weather is finally approaching, and the fishing is hot hot hot offshore. Saturday winds and surf were a little choppier than predicted but we got into some nice fish. Winds were great for the kayak and currents did not start ripping until after 1pm. On saturday, hooked, oarknot, and myself ventured out. caught alot of bonita, nice kings, runners, jacks of all sorts and sizes and one tuna. Water was murkier than normal which is not a bad thing, plankton and silt brings bait and bait brings predators. I will also make note that, absolutely zero bait, live or dead, are used on any of our trips, so whatever we catch is on artificials.

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Offshore Kayak Success

Florida Sportsman member: FLATS BROKE

Everyone I spoke to slayed fished yesterday. Here are a couple of the bigs boys Joe & I brought in. I was happy about my 35″ BFT until I spoke to Rob(PottyMouth) and he told me he landed a 40″! What a beast!

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Super Moon Kayaking

Florida Sportsman member: bbarton13

We decided to hit some bottom spots off destin on this super full moon. well we didnt launch till about 3 a.m. or so and it was calm and the sky was lit up! got to the first spot and josh pulls up this beast red snapper. not much going on after that till’ the sun started to rise. We heard a loud splash and everyone looked over there then we saw a sailfish jump and we all freak out and started going over towards it [...]

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Delray Beach Kayak Sailfish

Florida Sportsman member: blazing_reels

I was free lining a whole squid on the Penn Torque and had not checked the bait in quite a bit. I had let out quite a bit of line and was trying to speed reel the line in. As the line got close I slowed down to a stop to see if anything might of been following it. Sure enough I see a rather large shadow behind the squid. I let it sit but the lack of action made him lose interest. I pulled it in a threw it out in front of my yak, sure enough I saw him dart right for it.

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Paddling the Florida Keys

Florida Sportsman member: bugdoc

Took the wife down to Conch Key Cottages, MM 61, for a few days of paddling and exploring. She let me fish a little. The hotel is right on the water adjacent to what should have been good bonefish flats, but I did not see one the whole trip. There were some respectable barracudas to be had. It’s nice to be able to roll out of bed and be fishing within 5 minutes.

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The Delray Yak’ Drift

Florida Sportsman member: lckirk

Planned on a Delray to Boynton inlet drift, even staged a car at Boynton inlet. We put in at the beach in Delray water was perfect, flat and a light wind. We never got that far off only about 80ft we let the wind take us. It ended up taking us south east not the way we planned on going. The ocean had a good April fools joke by taking us the wrong way. But it ended up working out. Birds were diving all around us and bait was getting slammed on the top of the water. My bro-in law ended up with 2 AJ’s and I was skunked. Still a great day on the water.

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A Month of Action

Florida Sportsman member: Dj Dan Decibel

I haven’t posted anything in about two months or so, I just got back from Djing out of the country in late February. I’ve been doing some fishing here and there but this month has been really windy and it seems like the only time to have some fishing opportunity has been in the mornings when the winds are kind of calm. Even though the high winds we have, I have had some luck here and there [...]

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Palm Beach Offshore Yakin’

Florida Sportsman member: NELBAG

Well the plan was to get on the Cobia bite today as I have been hearing scattered reports. We hit the beach at Phipps Park in Lake Worth and are greated by 2-4′ seas and a erroded beach. We disscussed for awhile and decided to charge the surf at 7am. We hit 100′ and throw out flat lines and start jigging with DOA swimming mullets. Hour into the trip..nada..so we decide to paddle back out and north as the east wind has blown us in. My buddy Hoke trolls a DOA Terror Eyz in golden bream and is slammed by this gal in 65′ [...]

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Little Hickory Pass

Florida Sportsman member: bonitabob

The plan was to launch from the North end of Lover’s Key and visit the islands in the middle of the bay and look for reds and snook. When I arrived at the launch, I found my plans thwarted as one million mph winds were coming across the bay. Not to be outdone by weather, I opted to launch at Hickory Pass and maybe find some shelter from the wind. I met up with my buddy Mike, and we took off at sunrise [...]

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Mixed Bag

Florida Sportsman member: Yaksquatch

Decided to try somewhere brackish I haven’t spent much time, just to try something new this afternoon. Fished a few hours of daylight plus about 30min after dark with the moon so bright.

Was push-poling around in a foot of water when I came across a big, dark, gnarly tail sticking out of the water. Thought it was a big black drum and threw on him. After a 20minute sleigh ride I found out I was mistaken [...]

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Estero Bay Double Slam

Florida Sportsman member: bonitabob

I wanted to get over my dismal 12th place finish in the IFA tournament so I called Allen Reddick for some Estero Bay fishing. We launched at Week’s into a little wind, but not as bad as it was yesterday. Week’s is such a great place to lauch as it’s never too busy! We started fishing the flats right outside of the channel on the falling tide. I was using my usual, Gulp shrimp on a DOA cal jighead and it didn’t take long to snatch up a slot redfish [...]

Downrigger Plus Gog Equals Smoker Kayak King

Florida Sportsman member: FLATS BROKE

Went out yesterday with a half dozen gogs paddled out to 90ft and put my baits out, 1 flat line 1 on the downrigger. Slow troll out to 165ft and drop my jig and pull up a small king 28 inch. Headed in to 140ft where there was a nice color change and my rigger goes off zzzz’. 15 mins later I land this nice king. The downrigger was set at 50 feet.

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Florida Sportsman Member: FLATS BROKE

Fishing was slow for us this weekend, Current was ripping North 3+mph. Managed to catch this kingfish (70ft) on the way out on a deep diving Yozuri plug. We did a lot more kayaking than fishing. I sold the fish on the beach for a whopping $13.00 to a Canadian couple that really wanted it. They offerd to buy it so I said “$20 its great deal”, Then he said he had no cash .I loaded up my kayak and was ready to leave when I noticed the guy running down the street towards me with cash in his hand. He told me he managed to borrow $13 and thats all he had. So I gave in and took the $13.00 and used it for bait the next day [...]

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Recent inshore fishing reports from the West Central region.

Manatee River Snook

Florida Sportsman member: Bassin Assassin

We hit the south side of the 75 bridge first. I lost a small snook on 4 inch shadflash. There were tarpon rolling under the bridge, but couldn’t connect. Jeff hooked and landed a small snook. We went further up river and found a shade line in a little bay on the north side of the river. Jeff had a couple of good pops on the big spook in bone, but didn’t hook up. I lost a small snook on the spook jr.

We worked a long mangrove line near Redfish Point but had no luck

Went to my north side docks that have produced in the past. First cast under the last dock and I caught a small snook on the 4″ sf. We kept working docks and Jeff landed a small snook also on a paddle tail. Proceeded on down and we were probing under a dock thoroughly. Nothing. Made one more cast to the T of the dock and it got crushed. Set the hook on a good fish that went ballistic. She went out and then back for the dock. Kept her away and she made a great jump. Circled the boat and Jeff got her in the net. She measured 28.5 inches.

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Anclote Reds

Florida Sportsman member: TailingReds

Pretty good day on the water fishing the hill tide at Anclote. We caught two redfish, 23.5 inches and 32 inches. My buddy Mike caught the bigger fish on cut ladyfish and I caught the slot fish on a live pilchard. FYI, the small black tips are thick, so you have to sift through them to get the reds and snook.

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Little Cockroach Bay Action

Florida Sportsman member: Bassin Assassin

Launched out of Domino on the LMR today around 11:15am. Headed to the flat off LCRB. Still nothing happening there so I went back into LCRB. Fished back in there for the next 5+ hours. Worked mangrove islands, potholes and oyster bars. I did pretty well. All fish were caught on the 3 inch mullet in shadflash or the spook jr. in bone[...]

Finally got out of LCRB and went to the “guide” bank for some snook. Too windy and water was low. Went around the corner towards the back entrance to LCRB. Paralleling the mangroves with the spook in maybe 2-3′ of water. Getting near the entrance and my spook got crushed. The fish took off towards the mangroves and then came right back out. This fish had some power and was really putting me to the test. It was a good snook. She went under the boat and back out deep. After a great fight, I finally slipped her in the net at 6:50pm. She measured 30 1/4 inches and was extremely fat and healthy.

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Overcast Reds and Snook

Florida Sportsman member: abm5926

Yesterday, I went out to one of my trout/redfish spots and started throwing a spook jr since it was so cloudy. I caught several lower slot reds and some trout between 18 – 22 inches. It was low tide and when it started coming in, I was getting huge blow ups on topwater, seeing redfish starting to tail, and then some idiot in a inflatable boat ran his outboard right through the shallow flat I was fishing. I was pissed but I sucked it up and went to a steep drop off and started throwing 1/16th ounce jighead with a zman 5 inch shad tail. I twitched once and got slammed by something big. I was using a med/light rod and 3000 reel with 10 pound braid and 20 pound leader and almost went to the backing. After a nice fight, I pulled in this 36″ snook.

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Steady Snookin’

Florida Sportsman member: captainrandy

Todays charter landed two 39 inch snook and one 37 inch snook and lost another along the side of the boat. We have been catching them on the incoming tide along deep depressions and on points with rocks using white bait 4-6 inches in size. They have been feeding about an hour after the tide gets moving up to about 2 hours before high tide then they are cruising the mangroves and seem to settle in to looking at the baits. The trout have been around as well but they are in the lower limit of the slot with an occassional upper slot one thrown in. Get out and bend a rod as the cobia, mackerel are around to give you a great day on the water.

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St. Pete Trout and Reds

Florida Sportsman member: Icatcher22

Planned on taking the kayaks out to a protected flat in St.Pete to hide from the wind. The overcast made it a perfect opportunity for a top-water day. RawDaws (Brian) and myself both started off with skitterwalks. We started out hitting some average/smaller trout and then I finally got a big blow up. After a nice fight landed my personal best top-water trout that measured right at 27″.

Went on to work around the mangroves – had a couple followers that pushed some very large wakes but all hit and misses…I believe they were reds but for some reason, they were having trouble connecting with the top-water…tried slowing it down, stopping , changing retrieve but no luck w red on top-water.

Got back to a nice cove and switched to a 1/16thoz jighead w/ a white zmann jerk shad. Second cast and I connected with a pretty overslot red. It put up a great fight with a couple impressive runs. Ended up right around 31″

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Desoto Action

Florida Sportsman member: Bassin Assassin

Inspired by Cody’s recent beatdown that he put on the redfish over at Desoto, I decided to see if I could catch a few reds too. Fifty-three miles, $4.50 in tolls, $6 for ramp fee and an 1/8 of a tank of gas later, I made it to the launch. I put in at 12:30pm and headed over to Sawyer Key. I trolled over a pothole and at least 20 trout scattered. What I ended up doing during the day was circling Sawyer Key twice with a trek just north of there also. I mostly fished 1-5 feet in depth and focused on sandy areas with a decent grass mix whenever possible. I did work docks close by but had no luck on them. Water temp was 69-74 degrees. The weather was great and mullet were everywhere. This place was alive with activity[...]

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Going for the Trifecta

Florida Sportsman member: Bassin Assassin

Launched out of Wildcat Park today around 12:30pm. Water temp was 67-69 degrees and the wind was howling. Headed down to the big dock on the southside. Skipped under it with the 4 inch RT Mullet in smoke/gold halo. Got a strike on the first cast. It was a 14 1/4 inch rat red caught at 12:38pm. Went to the next dock but no strikes.

Down to the 75 bridge. Worked the pilings on the north side but no luck. Over to the south side. Worked one side and no strikes. Over to the other and threw out the same lure to parallel the pilings. Near the end of the cast and got a nice strike. Set the hook and a good snook broke the surface. Got her away from the pilings and she put up a great fight. Got her in the boat at 1:15pm. She measured 25 1/4 inches. Thought about taking a pic but too much of a hassle with the wind. It was brutal.

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Braden River Trout & Reds

Florida Sportsman member: Alex from GA

Didn’t get a bite until 1:15 when my partner caught a small redfish. Then I caught 5 trout from 12 to 16 inches in the next 45 minutes. In the next 3 hours I caught a 22, 23 and 28.5 inch redfish.

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Anclote Trout & Reds

Florida Sportsman member: Juicebucket

We drowned a handfull of already dead cut pins for about 10 minutess before the first rod went down. I was suprised to see 20 inch class Trout on the end instead of a Red. I’ve caught em on cut bait before I just wasn’t expecting it today. Suddenly it became a day of Trout fishing. Every few minutes a bait would get picked up and trout after trout came aboard. Decided it was time to get the girlfriend involved and had her grab the next rod to go down. It did and she did. A couple minutes later she had her first fish. It was a rather healthy 23″ Momma Gator; not a bad way to get into fishing I’d say[...]

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Tampa Bay Sheepshead

Florida Sportsman member: mojotarpon

Despite a little wind we had to get out and fish and break in the new boat. We loaded up on some shrimp and hit some spots for sheepshead. This time of year I love to target sheepshead and what a great battle they are on light tackle. Make sure you get plenty of shrimp, today two of us went through 15 dozen shrimp and ran out with fish eating. We started out on the incoming tide and work a line of docks. I like to get in the tower and just crews the docks spotting the fish and then just head back at the beging and target the docks with fish. We had pretty good luck and had a dozen nice fish in about a hour.

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Gator Trout & A Surprise Guest

Florida Sportsman member: secretspot

Jeremy came down for a day of fishing for some gators and maybe reds. After a very late start, we arrive to have the area all to ourselves- a rarity. I hook up with something that was fighting unlike anything I’ve ever hooked before. I then see why. It’s no fish but a little sea turtle. A few quick pics and a unhook and back he goes. We proceeded to tear into trout between 21-25 inches for about 2 hours. I lost a fish that might have been the biggest trout I’ve ever had. It was a monster.

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Killer Day on the South Shore

Florida Sportsman member: SouthshoreSlayer

With the warm weather we might have been able to get bait somewhere closer but I would rather head to the Skyway where I know I can get it 100%. After anchoring and getting set up just a couple tosses of the net and my 30 Gal well was full. We decided to hit Piney Point on the way back up to Cockroach. We fished there for about 30 minutes but there was no signs of bait, fish, mullet, or any life at all so we decided to head more North and hit the Cockroach flats. The tide was – 0.6 so there was hardly any water on the flats. Josh didn’t want to push his boat so he waded the outside bar while I pushed my boat through the real skinny parts and over the bar. I was looking for potholes and wakes. I saw some movement about 100 yards away and quietly headed that way. When I got within casting distance I anchored and threw out 2 bats of chummers. The were getting chased and I knew it was game on. I had a bait out for about 30 seconds and my drag starts to scream[...]”

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Full Day of Reds & Snook

Florida Sportsman member: second splash

First stop was a small cut near the mouth I did pretty well on last week and got set up. Cranked a couple baits of chummers and they were getting popped. First bait in the water gets hit within 15 seconds, a snook around the 18 inch range. As I release him Dave hooks up on an 18 inch red. Within 2 minutes of fishing we are 2/3 the way of a boat slam. All the fish caught today were in the 16-24 inch range. I think we need some cold weather to push more of the bigger ones back in the river. We caught 6 or so fish (reds and snook) at the first spot and decided to push up river. We anchored up on the second spot and started chumming. I get a snook on the first bait[...]”

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Got Snook?

Florida Sportsman member: Tarpontine

“Got on the water around 7 launching out of Gandy with a buddy. Loaded up pretty good on bait- some fat snook size whitebait, tons of little threads, and a couple dozen pins. Made a stop just north of the Howard Frankland and got a 23″ snook, a couple keeper size trout, and a rat red.

Looking for some more consistent action we moved to UTB, weaved our way through a maze of boats fishing the same area as we scouted for fish. Throwing some chummers as we went, we pulled on to an area where I started to see some fish. Next 2 hours were pretty steady- with the first 30-45 mins being non stop. Between the two of us we got 4 snook 30″ or better, a bunch in the low 20′s, and 10 or so rat reds. [...]”

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Gusty Winds, Redfish hitting

Florida Sportsman member: Lilcthefishslayer

“Mike busted up like 4 fat fish all within 20 mins or so. I caught a few myself with one being a real stud that came home for some blackened redfish. All fish were beautiful slot fish 24-26 except Mike getting one at 27 1/2. With a few 24′s in the mix as well. Only caught 1 rat which was nice! Plus all fish are fighting at least twice as hard now that the water temp has dropped. I love cold weather redfish! [...]”

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No Sunshine Slam

Florida Sportsman member: Lilcthefishslayer

Took Mike out on the skiff today hoping to get on some afternoon reds during the low tide. Well the sun wasn’t cooperating so no sight fishing. We picked up a few reds right off the bat, then we made a big move. At the next spot it was kinda slow, spotted a huge black drum just roaming around the flats but he wasn’t eating. Caught a few trout and snook along with a little red and made another move across the bay [...]

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Fort Desoto Breeder Reds

Florida Sportsman member: secretspot

Being that I am known as a gator trout specialist, I’d like to throw some reds up for your viewing pleasure. Two came on the spook Jr. Clown, pinfish color, and one on the DOA paddle tail, bream color. Leader was 20 pound flour with 10 pound braid main line. It was Capt. Chris Hanna, his girlfriend Christina, and myself [...]

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John’s Pass Slam

Florida Sportsman member: jewfish7

The weather looked ok for Thursday so I planned on throwing some artificials under the John’s Pass bridge and then hit a near shore reef to look for some snaps. The water was really dirty so the bridge didnt look so promising but I tried anyhow.Second cast using a 5-inch swimbait a tarpon eats it and makes some decent runs then a couple jumps and then he throws the hook next to the boat [...]

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Pass-A-Grille Beach Linesiders

Florida Sportsman member: watsondan1515

From the end of July up until last week I had good action (didn’t get skunked) each time I waded out from the beach at Pass-A-Grille. Go early, first light til about 10:30 a.m., or in the evening 7:30 p.m through sunset. Netted some greenies then chummed the outer sandbar in about waist deep water and hold on tight; trout, reds, snook, mackerel, blacktips, and of course the ladyfish [...]

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Flats Suprise

Florida Sportsman member: KeepmBent

We left out of Simmons Park looking to fish some reefs for grouper and snapper. We loaded up on threadfins that we used for cut bait and found a few mangos and macks, and a LOT of sharks. The gags did not want to play. We tried moving to some nearby wrecks but there were already boats anchored on them [...]

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Cockroach Bay Mixed Bag

Florida Sportsman member: flatsjunkie88

Got a call from a friend that wanted to give inshore fishing a shot. I told him I had a full boat but if he wanted to bring his we could hit the flats together. We loaded up with shrimp at Southshore Bait and Tackle. The shrimp were pitifully small ( 2″ was a big one ). We launched at CRB at 5:15 A.M. [...]

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Topwater Excitement

Florida Sportsman member: Bassin Assassin

Launched out of CRB at 6:15 a.m. yesterday with Dave (stormy). I had not done much fishing south of CRB so that was the plan. The noseeums are vicious at the ramp in the AM and then the mosquitos joined in at dark so have your repellent handy. We went out to the farthest mangrove point on the left and headed south along the shoreline. I started with the Spook Jr. in bone of course and Dave with the DOA chugger. It was overcast/cloudy and the sun only came out for a bit during the entire day. Conditions were ideal for a topwater bite [...]

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On the Road Again

Florida Sportsman member: Bassin Assassin

Decided to head back down to the Peace River yesterday with Dave (stormy). Launched out of Harbour Heights ramp at 6:20 a.m. I started off with the Spook Jr. in bone and Dave was throwing a DOA with a chugger head attached. We proceed over to the grassy points near the ramp, but no luck. Down to the little mangrove island at the mouth of Whidden Bay. Gave Dave first shot at the point of this island and he put it right on the money [...]

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St. Petersburg Reds

Florida Sportsman member: GEO

The redfish action continues to be strong with slot to oversized fish being caught around the Tampa Bay area. They are being caught on everything from top water lures, jigs, spoons, live bait and cut bait. If you can get upwind from them and drift in and set up this will leave them comfortable and willing to feed. With the wind at your back you will be able to make longer casts so that you can stay further away from the fish and catch more of them [...]

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Bishop’s Harbor- Tampa Bay Gem

Florida Sportsman member: Bassin Assassin

Launched out of Bishop’s Harbor with Dave (stormy) at 6:45am on Saturday. I had been there before with Hondo and Secret Spot and thought I would give it a try with Dave. The water temp was right at 80 degrees. The tide was incoming for a few hours, then kind of flat with a strong outgoing later. We eased out towards the mouth and the mullet were everywhere. We came up on a point with mullet jumping all around it. On my second cast with the Spook Jr in bone, my lure got crushed [...]

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Snook on Fire

Florida Sportsman member: flatsjunkie88

My buddy josh and I launched at Cockroach Bay at 5:15 A.M. We didn’t want to mess around looking for bait and it was still dark so we decided to run to the Skyway. We loaded both wells with whitebait and took off. We eased off the throttle as we hit the no wake zone as the sun was coming up. We anchor up along the mangroves and sling out some chummers [...]

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Peace River Catchin’

Florida Sportsman member: Bassin Assasin

Launched at Harbour Heights boat ramp at 6:30am yesterday with Dave (stormy). We were going to target boat docks again to see if we could duplicate our efforts from our last trip there. The fog was as thick as pea soup on the river. We went over to work the grassy area and island adjacent to the ramp. The water temp was 80 degrees and the tide was outgoing.

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Night Time is the Right Time

Florida Sportsman member: Trophy-Trips

Few pics from the other night. Basically how the last month has been. Snook bite has been solid day or night, and talk about quality fish this year. Bull reds hit or miss, tide and moon dependant. Few studs the other night but wasnt an all out blitz. As far as snook we still have a few good groups inside, but most have made their way out to the beaches and are chewing rather well on the right tides. Grunts, pins, cut lady, greenies and a few select other baits have been hard to beat. Should only get better over the next month.

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Peace River Dockin’

Florida Sportsman member: Bassin Assassin

Dave (Stormy) was going through snook withdrawal so I thought I might be able to put him on some snook if we took a bit of a drive. We headed down to the Peace River to work some docks. We launched at Harbour Heights boat ramp around 7am. The water temp was about 80 degrees with a high of 85 in areas. It was to be a slow incoming tide all day. We worked the mouth of Whidden Bay and the nearby island with no luck. We headed down river to a cut into the Shell Creek area [...]

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Beach Fishing Mixed Bag

Florida Sportsman member: PONCE

Spent a week down near IRB for my daughters wedding and a little RR with some beach fishing to boot. Kinda’ slow on the beach, only saw a handful of snook and a little bait was cruising around. We ended up fishing some causeways, inlets and beaches. Caught sharks, ladyfish, trout, snook and jacks as well as the usual beach-time residents. Thanks to the guys at DogFish for telling me where the trout and snook were hiding.

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Shallow Water Slam

Florida Sportsman member: CodyS

After a long week of testing at school all I wanted to do was get outside and on the water. Came home around 2:30pm, called up a fishing buddy, and were off. It was the end of the outgoing tide and middle of the afternoon…. not too great for fishing but we have a spot for that type of situation. Nearly dry flat with a sandbar and drop-off near a main channel [...]

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Windy Fishing

Florida Sportsman member: mojotarpon

Yesterday me and my dad hit the bay early, and the wind was blowing hard out of the North. Water temp around Gandy was a little above 74, and we had the 2 tide day with a tide slowly coming in all day. I had 4 blue crabs so we hit the Gandy Bridge first thing. It was pretty dang rough under that bridge with the wind and the smoke coming from up North made it more of a crazy morning. My dad made the first cast and was hooked up within seconds and the fight was on. After a a nice fight the big Black Drum was in the boat [...]

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Hooked into some Reds

Florida Sportsman member: Frogman

Hit the kings about 5 to 7 miles off, early in the morning got hits on blue runners and greenies. A lot of Spanish Mackerel floated one out for bait on a balloon but no takers. Wind picked up and then headed in back to the flats to hook into some reds. Caught some great size reds. Overall great day.

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Big Drum in the Bay

Florida Sportsman member: CodyS

Hit the bay early today around 6:30 a.m. and I was on my way to my first spot. Paddled out to a mudflat near some spoil islands and started throwing a topwater, first cast I get a huge blowup but whatever it was missed. After that all I was doing was atrracting a bunch of pesky ladyfish…those things seem to be everywhere. I moved out more to a grass bed in some deep water and started to drift, again the ladyfish are bashing my lure every cast but when it did make it to the bottom I hooked up with a nice trout, nothing big just 15-16 inch fish [...]

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Inshore Slayin’

Florida Sportsman member: inshoreslayer

My buddy and I hit the skyway early to load up on bait this am. Bait was everywhere, and there were tarpon under just about every light lurking around. First we waded docks in the river and scored a few trout 18-24 and I got a flounder around 15 ish. We picked a few snooklets up then we relocated to Palma Sola where we each scored a decent redfish. I also picked up my personal best trout that went 29 inches [...]

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March Double Grand Slam

Florida Sportsman member: mojotarpon

Today was another amazing day on Tampa Bay. Bait is really thick now, just about all the flats I checked today are loaded. After loading up on White Bait my son and I hit a couple spots just south of Gandy and we had a awesome bite. The Trout bite was sick, all fish were were just fat pigs in the 18″ to a nice 23″ Gator that my son “HRM” caught. We both hit a couple nice reds and we just need a couple snook for the slam [...]

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Peace River Trip

Florida Sportsman member: Bassin Assassin

Got up early Friday morning to drive to the Peace River. Got to the Harbour Heights Boat Ramp around 7am, which was just over 90 miles from the house. This ramp was very easy to find and within a couple of miles of I-75. Great ramp for small to mid-size boats. Normally you pay per hour for parking there at $.75 per hour. The machine wasn’t working and had a plastic bag around it so didn’t have to pay. Sweet! [...]

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Simply, Snook and Reds

Florida Sportsman member: mojotarpon

Today we went out for a few hours. Bait is so thick and easy right now, I love White Bait! We nailed some nice over slot Reds pushing the 29″ mark, and a couple Snook ate. Not bad for a afternoon trip [...]

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Snook are Chewing

Florida Sportsman member: mojotarpon

Now that bait is showing up we hit a couple spots for snook and nailed a couple nice fish on Tampa Bay. Thats my grandad , my dad, and my son. I nailed a nice fat pig and she put up a great fight. It was great having 4 generations on the boat. I love white bait!

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Still Chasing Sheep

Florida Sportsman member: Inshoreslayer

I went out and found the oldest sailboat I could find this morning covered in barnacles, tossed some crabs at em and they were hungry. Didnt get weights on em but yeilded some nice fillets. Once again free lined oyster crabs did the trick.[...]

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Plenty of Tampa Bay Trout

Florida Sportsman member: onthemarkcharters

Somebody pinch me! My calendar says its mid winter but it feels more like spring! Temperatures in the low 80’s with barely any wind is making for true Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce weather. With afternoon water temperatures at 67 degrees on lower Tampa Bay the flats continue alive with action. My clients today Garry aka Larry and his wife Rosalyn from Alabama were treated to some amazing sights [...]

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Recent inshore and offshore fishing reports from the Northwest region.

A Cobia “Orientation” Day

Florida Sportsman member: big bend gyrene

After loading up with bait, I ran out to a spot in 18′ with very rocky bottom and within seconds of dropping our anchor we’re spotting eagle rays and cobia are tackling our initial drops. We’re a bit slow to reach our initial bite and lose it, but didn’t have time to cry about it because almost instantly another rod off the back gets hit. End result a 31 foot short but solid fighter that we tag and release.

Things really slowed down after the initial bite, with just enough time between a few monster bites that we were too slow to the reels. Growing worried we might not get any more bites, I decided to chum some dead baits and it sure seemed to work as within minutes we had on the bite we wanted! A BIG keeper cobe that gave Ontiltttttt exactly the fight he wanted[...]

Ecofina Cobia & Grouper

Florida Sportsman member: big bend gyrene

Met up outside Tallahassee at 5:00am, and with crossed fingers we would be greeted by calm waters we made our way to the coast. First good sign of the day, it was calm… quite a change compared to the prior week’s weather.

Bman couldn’t have fought the fish more perfectly. He had the darn beast on for about 40 minutes or so, with us gasping at each and every run and turn of the reel, wondering which would give first, the fish, his 20 pound line being pulled down towards rocks, or his small freshwater size chug bug. Again, Bman showed unbelievable finesse in keeping the 30 to 40 pound cobia on the line and slowly but surely he turned the tide against the beast, or at least it appeared so as the cobia came closer and closer to the boat.

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Action Packed Day out of Ecofina

Florida Sportsman member: big bend gyrene

First good sign of the day, it was calm… quite a change compared to the prior week’s weather.
Second good sign of the day, while I quickly load the live well with pins Bman has a hot hand during slack tide catching mackerel, bluefish, and trout.

The good start had me biting at the bit to get on cobia, but due to the open grouper season and a slack tide pre-dawn launch I asked Bman to humor a different plan of attack than I’ve taken in the past.

Versus instantly running out to deeper hotspots, Bman and I stopped in a 15 foot rocky area and started trolling stretches towards a distant 19 foot spot. My goal involved more than simply catching grouper, as I wanted to record bottom readings from my Lowrance for future reference. This all sounded good and well during our pre-fishing war room strategy talk, but unfortunately we had not one single grouper bite during the scouting mission.

The only positive of the mission came when we reached our rocky end point in 19 feet of water. Bman noticed a wake being pushed about 30 feet in front of our bow and thinking it was a big mackerel, he threw a small chug bug to it on a rig that just as easily could have been used for catching small bass. Massive, massive, MASSIVE topwater gulping bite, and Bman yells, “IT’S A COBIA!” Absolutely and the very first midshore cast of the year off Marine’s Dream and it’s a BIG cobia.

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Carrabelle Reds

Florida Sportsman member: flat sick

Left the dock yesterday afternoon at 3:30 with every one running in from the storms look at me and my guest like we had lost are minds. With nasty looking storms all around lightning popping to the north I was wondering on are last min decisions to get out and try to catch a few fish. With my trusty I phone in hand I could see a small break in the storms so we put the hammer down and headed out the river.

Hit a couple spots looking for some sheepshead for dinner with no volunteers for the tacos. So I headed off to flat that had been holding some decent schools of reds earlier in the week. The wind had picked up pretty good so I figured it would be pretty challenging to say the least. No sooner than the trolling motor got wet we where hooked up on a pig[...]

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What It’s All About

Florida Sportsman member: GrouperGuru

Finally after months of dealing with house buying, house selling, moving, & the holidays, I was able to get back on the water. The weather Sunday was absolutely perfect. Sunshine, blue skies, 1 foot in the morning, slick in the afternoon…It doesn’t get any better than that! We ran out and secured a dinner of beeliners and seabass then I let the kids spend the afternoon catching AJs one after the other. Two worn out kids, lots of smiles, and a great memory for her friend who caught the biggest fish of his life. As much as I love fishing with my buddies, this is the kind of day I really live for.

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Carrabelle Inshore

Florida Sportsman member: flat sick

Has been a while since my last post but man the fishing has been great this year. Yesterday me and a client headed out about lunch time for some skinny water inshore action. Sheepshead where every where making it hard to spot reds with the sheepies darting every where. I was on the poling deck maybe 10 minutes when we spotted are first target. One cast landed this nice pompano.

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Large Reds Around Lanark

Florida Sportsman member: Bonecracker

Decided to fish around Lanark as I had got some good reports from fishing buddies of trout and redfish being caught. Had a few numbers in the GPS that had been productive in the past so we headed over to them and did little for over an hour due to low tide except catch pinfish for bait. Around 12:30 Mackenzie’s drag starts screamin’ and she had something big on her pinfish. Fifteen minutes later with a little help she lands this big Redfish between 20-25lbs[...]

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Last Call Gag Grouper Fishin’

Florida Sportsman member: Jhults11

We made the call to take our last licks at some gags before the closure on November first. The crew for the day was myself, Dad, Don (Greenbone), and Mike. We pushed away from Shell Island Fish Camp in St. Marks at 7:30 a.m. to a brisk, sunny morning. NOAA was calling for 5-10 knot winds and 1-2 foot seas but when we made it to the flats, well, let’s just say they were wrong. It was white capping as far as you could see with a stiff 15-20 knot northeast wind. We caught a well full of pins and pigs and decided to stick to the flats for a few hours and see if she would lay down enough to get to some close federal holes [...]

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Big Econfina Reds

Florida Sportsman member: flatsbroke22

Was down at Econfina for the weekend. Fishing was very slow due to lack of moving water and very stained water clarity. We did manage 14 trout, 5 rock bass, and one flounder for the cooler. All fish were caught on gulp shrimp in various colors. The surprise came friday mourning when we fishing around a rock pile in two foot of water. My partner had a gulp on a cork freelined out the back of the boat. Then bam rod gets doubled over and the fight is on!

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Slamming St. Marks

Florida Sportsman member: esapronetti

We went to St. Mark’s at sunrise to take advantage of cooler weather in the area. I caught a 20 inch redfish right away using live shrimp. There were plenty of Spanish mackerel that kept crashing into a bait fish school, so I knew I would get some of them. My first was a 20 inches and then I caught an 18 inch snapper and kept both. I was losing a lot of bait to a school of small sea bass, but then a mangrove snapper of keeper size showed up and I was able to add him to my haul [...]

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Grouper Were Chewin’

Florida Sportsman member: omegafoo

Decided to try a post storm trip to find some grouper. We had to weed through a few 8 to 10 pound snapper (well, maybe a lot more than a few) but managed a nice box of fish.

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Ochlocknee Bay Offshore

Florida Sportsman member: alligatorob

Went out with Clay Oaks, it was a bit rough but we caught fish: 6 AJs, 5 gag grouper, 3 red grouper, and various assorted smaller snappers. Brought up a whole lot of red snapper, that was frustrating. We were in 92 to 96 feet of water.

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Mexico Beach Snapper Closer

Florida Sportsman member: omegafoo

With snapper season coming to an end in the near future Line Dancer wanted to make two final trips offshore. The first was going to be a test run with the World Cat with just LD, myself, and his father-in-law on 7/12 with us swapping out the father-in-law for his wife and sister-in-law on Friday (the 13th – more to come on that) [...]

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Snappers Snappin’ off Carrabelle

Florida Sportsman member: GrouperGuru

Hit the fish again today with my little brother. Never had a fast bite today like we did yesterday morning, but we caught fish pretty steady all day. Again back at the ramp by 1:30. Limit of red snapper and gags, 3 red grouper, 4 mangrove snapper, and some assorted sea bass and beeliners [...]

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Carrabelle Bottom Bite

Florida Sportsman member: ranaman

Celestial Crab Anniversary/birthday trip was successful! Happy Eight years to my rib Celeste!! We had a great diner at my friend Danny’s restaurant Tamara’s in Apalachicola. This our unexpected second June trip this snapper season, things somehow worked out that The Celestial one and my beautiful daughter could join us, the stars aligned, the moon was waxing and the crew restless. Seas were not as predicted, but then when are they, my plans were to fish with some familiar faces, but a son of one and daughter of mine threw us a curve ball, we did best to make contact and keep things in play, but with extra fielders it ended up being a 2 boat trip on Saturday [...]

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Grand Slamming St. Marks

Florida Sportsman member: esapronetti

My wife and I went out early to the jetty in front of the St. Mark’s lighthouse and had a great day. Using live shrimp I caught a 17.5 inch redfish, and followed it with another at 17.75 inch and released both of course. My wife caught a huge Spanish mackerel that gave her quite a fight. I managed to pull in a flounder and then she topped off the day with a surprise pompano [...]

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Snapper Season Opening

Florida Sportsman member: line dancer

I planned on fishing with my wife’s uncle on Friday, but that got called off due to the weather. Omegafoo was planning to fish on my boat with us on Saturday. with the forecast still more than my back could bear we changed gears and decide to try some of the close in stuff. We got ready and headed out early Saturday morning and the seas sure made me glad we were not going to try and run 40 plus miles [...]

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Snapper, Grouper, Flounder…Lanrk Offshore

Florida Sportsman member: Jhults11

Seeing that it was the opening weekend of red snapper season and we had a narrow weather window on Sunday, myself and the crew decided to give it a go. My best friend who I used to fish with all the time until he moved to Delaware to take a job was in town for the week and chomping at the bit. We left Tallahassee at 6 am and were in St. Marks putting the boat on the trailer at the marina by 715. Once on the trailer we headed west to Lanark [...]

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SGI Fishing Report

Florida Sportsman member: Circle-Hook

Quick report on a week at SGI with family and college kids, who think 6:00 a.m. is time to go to bed, not fish [...]

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Panacea Offshore

Florida Sportsman member: SIGN4U

Had a great week of fishing. Water was flat. Caught everything on ly’s and live hard tails.

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Taylor County Spring Fishing

Florida Sportsman member: reel cowboy

Here are a few pics from some recent trips to Taylor County. Most of these fish were caught out of Fenholloway but long runs between points, bars & creeks. Mostly my tournament partner but a couple of me as well [...]

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Some Trout and a Cobia Conquest

Florida Sportsman member: IAM

I’ve been fishing quite a bit since it warmed up, but wasn’t too much thinking about cobia until 2 weeks ago. We were working the bars at the mouth of St. Marks and having luck here and there on redfish, trout and flounder that were unlucky enough to smell the fish blood stains on my skiff (it’s like collateral chumming), but never really keyed in on the fish in my opinion. We got some trout and had some fun over the numerous trips in March and April, and Bruddy fell in the water. The trout are around the bars and nearshore, pinfish are on the flats in 4 to 8 feet. In about 20 feet, things were pretty quiet most trips except for the hoards of millions of bait that seemed ever-present and hungry [...]

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Econfina/Aucilla River

Florida Sportsman member: Jolly Man

My dad and uncle and some friends camped down at the Econfina State Park to make some memories. Uncle Butch and I met down there a little after lunch and set up camp. After setting up tent and screen room we decided to go out…wind was calm and we were met by bites on every cast soon to find out the bottom is littered with baby rock bass. Ended up catching one keeper trout. My buddy and his kids were out there and had been since 10 am they had four when we went to fish shoreline in hopes of reds with no luck. We decided to head in at 6 pm to meet with dad. Only to learn dismayed that my buddy stayed where we drifting and put 9 more keeper trout in the boat.

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Ecofina Reds and Trout

Florida Sportsman member: charlie tuna

Put in around 9:00 AM – tide dead low — ran North and fished in 3 to 4 foot of water that had a lot of bait pods. First fish was a good size mack, but as i didn’t have my net ready he ended turning at the side of the boat and cut me off and swam away with a brand new $12.00 lure .. Fishing was red hot, lots of ladyfish, lower slot trout, couple of bluefish, kept one 22 inch trout. Moved inside to fish the river mouths as the tide was on the increase. Caught eight reds, one 24 and one 22 inch which i kept.

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Lanark Inshore Report

Florida Sportsman member: flat sick

I love the spring every time you go on the water you never know what your going to find. We have been fishing grass flats from 2′ to 5′. Speckled trout have been busting top water plugs and jerk shads. There are a few spanish showing up and a lot of bait on the flats. Live shrimp on the reds and flounder has been the ticket the weather and the fishing has been outstanding [...]

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St. Teresa Inshore

Florida Sportsman member: flat sick

First off, hi everybody, I’m new to the forum. Enough about me me lets talk fishing. The weather the last couple of weeks has made it a little challenging. I’ve been catching some nice speckled trout in the creek mouths in the crooked and new river. Top-water plugs are my favorite mirror lure or what ever you got as long as it looks like a wounded mullet fishing em’ slow. On the flats we have been fishing for big red drum there’s some big schools out there sight fish in 1 to 2′ fish points, potholes, look for mullet
and rock grass fish DOA shrimp or gulp. Trout and flounder are also being caught on the flats with some blue fish and spanish starting to show up [...]

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A St. Marks Winter

Florida Sportsman member: IAM

Hey yall’, I don’t know if you’ve been thinking fishing lately like I have, but this warm weather is really sticking around. Most trips, the warm outer clothes had to stay on most of the day, but we were blessed with a few calm days where conditions allowed for me to turn the skiff loose in the gulf [...]

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Spring Warrior

Florida Sportsman member: beer thirty

Pony Keg had to stay behind to work on a school project and was not happy about it. That left me and Big D to thin out the fish population. This is my favorite time of the year to fish for many reasons. No bugs, no sweating, and no crowded ramps to name a few. We did not set any records, but did catch a few good fish and had a great time floating around on the flats. I will be back before the first hard freeze hits [...]

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Recent offshore fishing reports from the Florida Keys region.

Lower Keys Tripletail

Florida Sportsman member: swordslayer71

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying this break in the weather pattern we’ve had since the end of May and taking advantage by staying primarily offshore. There have been dolphin everywhere each day from 300 feet. and on out to the wall. I haven’t seen too many larger fish, but some 15 to 20 pounders are still being caught with an occasional 35 plus being heard of. Lots of blackfins still scattered around as well [...]

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Tavernier Bull

Florida Sportsman member: COJE PEJE

My buddy and I cleared Tavernier Creek about 7:30 and headed out to find that the forecast was actually on point. We found a decent weed line in 400 feet of water and began trolling. We hooked up with a nice cow which we boated, and caught 2 more schoolies on the troll. At about 10:00 we got hit hard, and a huge bull jumped out of the water. Seconds later the cow takes the other bait and starts running, but soon after jumps shaking her head and spits the bait. After a 25 minute fight, we finally landed the bull which ended up weighing 44 pounds.

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Islamorada Dolphin

Florida Sportsman member: INTREPID377

I squeezed one more trip in yesterday before bringing the boat back to Lauderdale to prep for Bimini. Based on our recent trips I decided to focus on 650′ of water and see what we could find. We were rewarded almost immediately with a nice cow.

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. They’d turn on pitched baits but not hit and then casually swim from bait to bait in the spread. It was frustrating but at the same time very cool to watch the fish for an extended period of time. Finally after following one fish for nearly an hour (and having a “run & gun” boat give up ) we got the largest dolphin of the day to eat a pitched ballyhoo.

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Key Largo Dolphin

Florida Sportsman member: Chewdog2121

Finally got the opportunity to get offshore and chase all these dolphin everyone is talking about. Water temps were 77-78 degrees and a solid SE Wind at 13 mph. Well, we had to work, but managed to put together a respectable haul. It was a bit sloppy, call it a solid 3-4 feet at times, some a bit more. We shot out to 900+ feet briefly, but ended up pushing back in to the 300-450 foot zone. At least there was broken live grass in this area and lots of terns. Anything past 500 feet was pretty desert-like, no grass, debris, and minimal bird activity out there. Once we came back in, we picked up the only frigate we saw all day, along with a tern working hard to the southeast. The flying fish were flying! We casted live bait into the activity and hooked up a nice 30-lb cow

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Mahi Off Cudjoe Key

Florida Sportsman member: urbanRenewal

We headed offshore and after talking to a few others on the radio, we decided to drop in and start trolling at 350 feet or so. Almost immediately we hooked and landed a schoolie that was about 25 inches. At about 450 feet the rigger popped and we had a much better fish, call it 38 inch fork length. We continued south through the ups and downs with reports of the occasional fish in the second 600 feet. Sure enough, a way back goes off and another 38-40 inch fork comes in. We continued to troll and on the way back in at 600 feet we hook up again and put another 40 inch fork Mahi in the box.

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Key Largo Grouper and Redfish

Florida Sportsman member: gtpvette

Finally got out yesterday and the wife and I had a really nice day! We ended up running in about 1PM as a couple of Storm clouds were moving in. We were in 120′ Grouper were really biting. Our one Red went the better part of 15l pounds. I Hated putting him back. Water was flat and clear.

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Lower Keys Amberjack

Florida Sportsman member: swordslayer71

After getting through the windy/rainy/lightning filled Friday I was excited for the “predicted” calm(er) Saturday. It of course wasn’t to be and with a small craft advisory hanging out we decided to give it a little time to lay down. We finally left the dock at 11 or so and got on the water. It was still pretty sloppy but calmed down a fair amount while we were out there. Very fishable, just had to drive carefully. The plan was to head offshore and get some people their first AJ’s. The fish were very cooperative and readily ate the jigs we presented.

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Offshore & Patch Reefs/strong>

Florida Sportsman member: TavernierGuy

Have not venture offshore in awhile, but here is what I know. Bigger Tuna on the Islamorada Hump and the 409 Hump showed up. Phins are being caught on the southeast wind. Pick and choose your days. 300-600 feet. Guys got on them late yesterday, right place at the right time. Pick your sick days on the southeast wind. Few wahoo. We lost one yesterday on the edge in 130 feet on the tide change. Chewed through #7 wire. Fished 85 feet for Yellowtails yesterday, few fat flags, but the water temp. is hoovering around 73 degrees fahrenheit. Few sails cruising the edge. Kingfish bite was on with the cold.

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Lower Keys Offshore

Florida Sportsman member: swordslayer71

The offshore bite is there, but not rock solid. Wahoo have been caught but not in any serious numbers. The tunas are out as well but it seems the most reliable bite is coming from live chumming early in the morning. I’ve been playing around with the early tarpon on light tackle that have been showing up and they’ve been pretty co-operative. As long as the wind is from the north it’s pretty nice out front. Here are some pictures of a baby goliath we got on the reef, a nighttime tarpon release, my good friend Capt. Joe and his recent wahoo catch, and a picture I like that I took of bahia honda today.

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Staying Busy in Islamorada

Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy

We’ve had some great fishing down here in Islamorada this week. Today we had a beautiful catch of mutton snapper and kingfish. The kings haven’t really shown up too good this winter, but today we had a nice bite of fish from snakes all the way up to 30 pounds. We also caught some really nice muttons. Both the kings and muttons were taken on live cigar minnows. If anyone wants to know where we caught them, all of the muttons were caught right in the corner of the mouth. There’s also been some really nice dolphin lately. This 46 pound bull was caught along with a 27 pound cow on friday in about 250 feet of water.

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Patch Reef Windy Day

Florida Sportsman member: TavernierGuy

Got out this morning with Capt. Troy and Capt. Jason to do a little windy day patch reef fishing. Kept 2 Nice Muttons for dinner. Bite did not let up. Lost a few mystery fish. Good day.

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Muttons in the Tortugas

Florida Sportsman member: rwood

We caught a lot of muttons, blackfin tuna, red grouper, had a sailfish on the line, kingfish and more. Incredible trip. We left Key West at 7:30am and got to our first spot at 9am. First spot was good with a couple of muttons. We then moved to another spot that was solid action. At one point one of us was fighting a sailfish, another was fighting a blackfin tuna and the other was hauling in a mutton[...]

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Mutton Snapper off Tavernier

Florida Sportsman member: TavernierGuy

Got a late afternoon start today so I only had a couple of hours to get some fishing in before the cold front pushed through, did not feel like chasing phins. Decided to stay in close & look for mutton snappers and groupers. Had one dead bonito for bait. At about 2:30 PM the fish fired up, caught two heavy lifters. After putting the second one in the box, it was time to go as it was starting to get ugly looking off towards the west, not to mention the Bonito meat was gone and the Cudas were thick around the boat. [...]

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Dolphin & Blackfin Off Tavernier

Florida Sportsman member: TavernierGuy

Grabbed 3 conventional rods & 1 spinning rod today, no ballyhoo rigging. Just going fishing. Keeping it simple paid off today. Fish were chewing. Got to love the Southeast wind in December. We were working a weedline that had been picked through pretty good early in the day by other boats, spotted a lone frigate bird about 2 miles off the weed line, set the course, then hooked a tuna under the frigate then up came the dolphin. All the drags started screaming. Had a serious fire drill going on, but it was a hell of a lot of fun! The fish did not want to stick around the boat, so we stuck under the Frigate bird for another 2 fish then started to move back in, had enough fish. Caught 5 at 2:00 PM, that was a enough for us. [...]

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A Bit of Tavernier Patch Reef Action

Florida Sportsman member: Augie3000

Fished a patch in 15 feet, inside of little conch reef using shrimp and ballyhoo plugs. Caught a few short muttons around 10-12 inches, a red grouper about 1 inches, a couple keeper yellowtails and this pretty nice short black too. We only fished for a little over an hour at this spot and there was good action. I’m sure there were some keeper groupers down there we just didn’t find them. Water was very clear, light winds under 10 mph from the ENE , and almost flat calm with a tiny bump. Very light current.[...]

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Thanksgiving Dry Tortugas Trip

Florida Sportsman member: kilsong

My fishing report might be different from others because I concentrated on jigging on this trip testing/experimenting tackle as I own a tackle shop specializing in jigging and popping.

I am an addicted grouper jig fishermen and I knew I could catch many groupers on jigs on the trip.
But I really wanted to catch black grouper on jigs as I haven’t done it before. Also, I wanted to catch mutton snapper on jigs and figure out what kind jigs work best for them. But, the most important objective of this trip was to know whether jigging actually scare off mutton snapper as some mutton snapper bait fishermen claim [...]

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Patch Reef Muttons

Florida Sportsman member: TavernierGuy

Wind was gusting pretty good from the North early Friday. Did not want to mess around chasing Sailfish offshore as my guests just wanted to bend the rod & catch dinner. Set up in 90 feet, but sea sickness took its toll shortly after the hook was set. Went with Plan B and hit a couple of my favorite patch reefs and rockpiles in 15 feet to 20 feet of water that hold nice snappers in the winter [...]

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Fat Keys Muttons

Florida Sportsman member: flagfishing

Started of with a beautiful day with winds under 7 mph. Joined some friends for a day of bottom fishing with Captain Jack with Two Conchs Charters. He put us on a reef and we hit the mangroves and yellowtail snapper. Then we headed out to deeper waters for the big boys. We caught four fat mutton snapper to complete the day. Thanks Captain Jack for a great outing!

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Big Pine Reef Report

Florida Sportsman member: fyrdriver

We headed out Saturday afternoon before the winds started on Sunday. My family got a couple hours of fishing in. Caught tons of smallish yellows, regardless of where we anchored. Can’t complain about the bite though, it was constant, just drop and reel up. Although the only notibles were a 19-inch mutton, 18-inch mango and a 24-inch grouper, we had a great time. And yes, my son outfished me again, he got the grouper all by himself [...]

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Dry Tortugas Fishing Adventure

Florida Sportsman member: cudaman

It was going to be a mixed jigging trip and bait trip. We had planned what worked for us last year, no bait in the water until we finished jigging. It worked at the beginning but later on we seemed to have gone in our own individual plans to get the fish to bite. We all had mixed jigging and baits at the same time and it worked ok. Jigging didn’t impair fishing with bait and fishing with bait didn’t impair jigging. Dead bait worked better by switching to different baits as often as the bite slowed down [...]

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Big Pine Reef Report

Florida Sportsman member: fyrdriver

My son and I went out to Big Pine reef area on the 30th for some yellowtailing. The forecast said 1 to 3 but really was 2 to 4 and wind chopped (they were way off with the wind forecast too). I aimed a little shallow because I wanted my son to catch lots of fish and have a good time, so we ended up in about 50 feet of water. Right now there are tons of ballyhoo in the area, so when we started chumming they were everywhere [...]

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Daytime Swords off Islamorada

Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy

We’ve had some great fishing down here in Islamorada especially this past weekend. On thursday the 20th we started the weekend out with a swordfish trip and had a great day bringing 2 swordfish back to the dock. The current was ripping out in the deep, but the bite was on with 3 bites on 3 drops [...]

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Lower Keys Reef Trip

Florida Sportsman member: swordslayer71

Headed out for a brief trip to the reef Saturday after finding a break in the weather. Did some bottom fishing and found the usual snapper/grouper suspects willing to cooperate. My buddy Jack who was yellowtailing on straight 10lb got a solid hit from a mystery fish. We all suspected it was a yellowtail that had gotten cuda’d but we hadn’t seen any tell tale cuda’ signs yet. Once we finally saw the fish as it shot to the surface we were all pretty surprised to see a cobia.

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Groupers and Muttons off Key West

Florida Sportsman member: snappersnatcher

Hey guys! Fishing started with a 7 hour ride, way west. We dropped our first baits and it was on, bites right away. I thought for sure it was on, but I thought to soon, the bite shut off for a little bit and then sharks started to turn on. After some sharks, we made a move and we started to pluck some more muttons. The trip wasn’t on fire but if you put in time on the rail you managed to do well. Goggle eyes were working well, as well as ballyhoo [...]

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Keys Offshore Smorgasbord

Florida Sportsman member: INTREPID377

For those of you that have read my reports you know it’s usually dolphin, dolphin, and the occasional dolphin. This one will be a little different. We fished Friday and Saturday and here’s what we found.

We spent most of our time between 350′ and 750′ (10 mile to 16 miles) and conditions were similar over that entire spread. The dominant theme is birds and tunas, LOTS of birds and tuna [...]

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Big Sword out of Islamorada

Florida Sportsman member: syxx

Well everything seemed to settle down after the minimal tropical storm we encountered last week. The weather has been been very good, with moderate to light winds in the 5 to 12 knot range for the most part. The mahi bite has still been fair the past few days. If you find the right piece of debris (which holds bait and keeps the mahi around), your day can be made, which happened on the Catch 22 a few days ago. They found a piece of bamboo and caught 50 mahi off it to 12 pounds!

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Labor Day Weekend in Marathon

Florida Sportsman member: gatormonroe

We were down for the long weekend and decided to try fishing three different ways on the three different days.

Saturday was a little choppy for my son, so we started off on a patch reef. We caught quite a few small snapper and grouper and kept a decent mangrove and a couple of grunts. Before you laugh, try it. Grunt is excellent. There just isn’t much meat on them.

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Key Colony Flag Yellowtails

Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton

Today, I was out of Key Colony, with a family that wanted to fish for yellowtails. They rented a house there and didn’t know the area well, so we started by going to a spot where I’ve caught many tails and some bait with a previous customer with his family. I moved around and anchored near and all we caught where some bonitos, so we moved on and tried a few more spots [...]

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Trolling off the Islamorada Humps

Florida Sportsman member: Mako my Day

Made a trip offshore from Tavernier creek today, stopped at the Islamorada hump and trolled up a few Tuna, then headed out to look for the elusive Mahi Mahi. We managed to find a huge school of peanuts, but no keepers. The wind picked up a bit for the ride in this afternoon, made a couple of quick drifts for grouper, but no takers. All of the out of towners caught a fish, and came home with smiles, so a good day, topped off with a plateful of seared tuna and a cold cerveza [...]

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Blackfin off the 409 Humps

Florida Sportsman member: expedition

Late post , we were actually down on the humps last weekend on the 12th, what a great day we had, got 9 nice blackfin tuna. Never even saw a dolphin or any sign, lots of birds and tuna schools on the way to the humps but we could not get them to eat, we tried several schools [...]

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Tavernier Bottom Report

Florida Sportsman member: miamimutton

Today’s trip was out of Tavernier, The ocean was nice with smooth conditions, we ran out to 70 feet and the current was slow to the north, the fish did not want to show very much, I started with a demo and got one tail but, the bite was too slow and far so we moved on to another spot in 82 feet and I noticed a commercial boat near by he was a friend of mine [...]

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Marathon Patch Reef Fishing

Florida Sportsman member: captdallas2

With all the lobster and spear fishing reports I just had to add that you can actually catch fish hook and line in the Florida Keys. With a weak current up the anchor line, the ‘tails developed lock jaw after a couple were boated so we shifted to patch fishing. The Mangrove was about 25 inches and the Red grouper 22 inches. The mutton was just legal, but Tom seemed pretty happy to invite it home for dinner.

We lobstered Monday and Tuesday. A bit rough for my boat to do much else but we did get some nice snapper with some help from CaptDallas2. Then bit a little Sunday afternoon [...]

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Full Moon Snapper Fishing

Florida Sportsman member: Trollaltdelete

The plan was to do some spearfishing and then hit the reef for full moon snapper fishing. On the way out back we dropped the pinfish traps and then since we had a youngin on board, we hit some shallow water for some hog hunting. We saw lots of them, but only small ones. I did see one big one in the deeper water, but I was out of air when he appeared and he was not sticking around [...]

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Lower Keys Bull Dolphin

Florida Sportsman member: fyrdriver

Kinda’ new to the forums, but I decided to post our report from yesterday. Trolling off Big Pine we found some nice weed patches and birds in about 600 feet, but only got a couple throw back dolphin early. At about 11:00 we hooked up with this bull in about 550 feet in some scattered weed. He made a few hard runs but in about 10 to 15 minutes we were able to gaff him!

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Key Largo Blue Marlin

Florida Sportsman member: releasegear

Went out with Capt. Geoffrey Campbell on the Sweetwater. Headed out to 600 feet but didn’t see much action. Decided to go back to 400 feet where we saw a nice weed line. As soon as we get there we see a big splash, looked like a marlin, but not 100 percent. We had a chin weighted ballyhoo back deep on a 20 pound outfit, she hits hit twice and lets go, but on the third time she’s hooked. Took two and a half hours to get her boatside for pics and release [...]

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Marathon Mixed Bag

Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton

Today we went out of the Channel Five Bridge and headed south. My customer said he wanted big fish, he didn’t want quantity he wanted quality, so I changed my original plan since he was with his kids. I was going to get them in an easy catching frenzy of tails, so I changed to a flag spot in deep water where the bottom holds unstoppable groupers [...]

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Family Fishing in the Keys

Florida Sportsman member: releasegear

Hi, last week took the family out for a short trip with Captain Geoffrey on the Sweetwater. We only fished for 2 hours (storms were coming) but had non-stop snapper action and great conditions. Kids had a blast!

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Dry Tortugas Grouper Diggin’

Florida Sportsman member: Yellowtail 23

Been trying to post our trip for a couple of days now. I think I broke the code on posting pics. We’ll see in a few lines. After a ton of planning and prep, we finally set a date for our trip to the Tortugas. Crew consisted of myself, son-in-law Matt and a former Chief of his in the USCG, also named Matt. We’ll call him Chief for the remainder of the post. Chief just got back to the keys from the panhandle and brought his beautiful new toy, a 27′ Walk around Grady! [...]

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Miami Mutton Marathon Vacation

Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton

I’ve been on vacation, doing what I like best, fishing with family and friends. We went out after all the storms and fished for mangroves at night and got our limit of 20 in 1 hour and ran in quickly with another storm coming. We took the nephews and cousins the next morning, went out and got 25 yellowtails. These fish where flags [...]

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Dry Tortugas Fishing Bonanza

Florida Sportsman member: bassjedi

Headed down to Key West on June 24 ready to do some fishing. I had never been there before and was excited to get some new species. Unfortunately the weather was not cooperating and I had to sit at the dock June 25, 26, and 27. Finally on the 28th I was able to get out and fish. I hopped on the Allison Jane out of Key West with Captain Steve Sanchez. Captain Steve has been fishing there his whole life and it showed [...]

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Key West Offshore/Nearshore

Florida Sportsman member: Got TA Go

In general, as we got closer to the full moon…the bite got tougher. Last Friday there were tuna all over the place, but it was tough to get in front of them and get them to bite. Finally did and got a double on the skippies on a Rattle Jet in the way back position and on a ballyhoo/skirt combo in close. Dolphin were tough too, ate the blue Rattle Jet mid spread [...]

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Nice Bull off Summerland

Florida Sportsman member: Death From Above

Ran out to the wall looking for dolphin and tuna. The dolphin have been scattered but we manged this one around 5 miles past the wall under a couple of birds. Hit a rigged ballyhoo on a blue and white Island lure. We had a big Boone bird teaser out and that may have helped him find the bigger bait. Found the tuna schools right at the wall and caught them till our arms hurt. Purple and black were the hot colors for the tuna.

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Yankee Capt’s Fishing Fun

Florida Sportsman member: cudaman

At the last minute I decided to jump on the 2 day Yankee Capts trip. I did not have much time to go out and catch bait on my own but I did look for Gogs but couldn’t find them so I loaded with white bait, small runners, and dork jacks. Nilson (rare) one of my fishing buddies gave me some more bait including some pinfish and so I went on my way to the Keys [...]

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Lower Keys Offshore Report

Florida Sportsman member: swordslayer71

Been taking advantage of this nice weather as of late and have fished both offshore and the reef. The offshore bite has been kind of sporadic dolphin wise, where it seems to be if you find ‘em you’ll kill ‘em but if you don’t, you don’t. The skipjacks have been large and in good numbers right on and near the wall itself. 9 out of 10 pieces of debris I’ve found have been empty, but that 1 has been holding dolphin and tripletail. The reef is real hot right now, both shallow and deep. Tight lines.

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Dry Tortugas with Capt. Yuri

Florida Sportsman member: Fingerling

Hi all, new to the forum so here goes. Also, sorry for the late report. Headed down to the keys on Thu 6/14 for our annual Dry Tortugas pilgrimage with the famous Capt Yuri. Our group of John, Gil, Bob, Dean and myself (Frank) have gone on many trips with Yuri (this one made 9 for me) and we always have a great time. This year, Yuris’ nephew Chris joined us since he was down visiting for a few months. What a great kid and pretty good fisherman too, must run in the genes [...]

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Offshore of Marathon

Florida Sportsman member: chompchomp

It’s Saturday morning, and the same old story’s really getting old. Small craft advisory yaddah, yaddah, yaddah. Yesterday we fished really hard only to boat three mahi. Found the first one under some birds just beyond the reef and thought it might be one of those days when we find the fish inside, but we ended up having to run 23 miles out to find birds.

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KW Offshore Grad Gift

Florida Sportsman member: Got TA Go

I had the opportunity to run offshore with a father/daughter team to go catch dolphin on Dream Catchers 32′ Yellowfin Wednesday and had a blast! The trip was originally scheduled to go on Tuesday, but Capt Steve and I discussed it and decided if the pair could fish Wend it would be much better. Fortunately, their schedule allowed for the shift and it was set [...]

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Offshore of Marathon

Florida Sportsman member: chompchomp

We arrived on Saturday and will be here for two weeks. Considering the long-range forecast deteriorating from bad to worse, we decided to take a beating on Sunday. It’s hard to fish when you can’t stand up in the boat, but we trudged out toward the Hump, looking for signs along the way. Ten miles off, we found birds and practiced for awhile on short schoolies before moving deeper. In 650, we found a decent weedline that held a big red plastic water tank. We trolled by and a nice bull immediately slammed a skirted hoo. Though our gaff broke on the first attempt, we pulled out the backup and put the 25 pounder on ice [...]

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Yankee Capts Trip Report

Florida Sportsman member: cudaman

The morning started slowly for me, one pink muffing and since I saw Bobby hooked on an AJ I took out my toys to do some jigging and had some fun with a 50 pounder AJ that was released. What a pain they are to fight but I love it [...]

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Lower Keys Dolphin

Florida Sportsman member: swordslayer71

The dolphin have definitely been around this past week. I’ve seen the majority of the fish in the 350-450 foot range on scattered weeds, with the tell being small birds hovering over the fish. The average size has been smaller, around 18-25 inches, but there are still plenty of keepers to be picked out. We were able to catch as many as we wanted, and whenever they’d get finicky I’d throw a plastic swimbait out and they’d get fired right back up again.

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Little Torch Mutton

Florida Sportsman member: captdallas2

Just had to post Elijah with his first mutton snapper. The current was a little off for the tails. Only put a couple in the box before the ceros and rainbow runners took over. We caught the mutton on in the channel scouting spots. Fun little half day showing them around.

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Hogs on Hooks

Florida Sportsman member: Reel Tease

Went down to the keys before the weekend started to get on some hogfish action. The day was rainy, with some bad weather rolling in early in the morning. The wind and current were not our friends that day. They were totally opposite and everyone knows how much of a pain that can be. Anyways we managed to pull up a few Hogs and some nice sized mangroves. The day wasn’t the best, but was able to spend some time out with my dad and some friends [...]

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Yankee Capts Charter

Florida Sportsman member: bite my bait

We got to the mothership at 8:45 a.m., and began the process of unloading the suv and U-Haul. Then the clock hit 12 and then 12:15 and still we didn’t leave. Greg has always been punctual on departure time, anyways we had a few late birds show up at 12:30 and if me and my boys didn’t help them unload we would have been at the dock till 3 p.m. Anyways we leave at 1 p.m. and we heard that we were going for a long ride, we started fishing at 6:30 p.m. [...]

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Lower Keys Offshore and Reef Report

Florida Sportsman member: swordslayer71

I’ve been fishing a pretty even split of offshore and reef recently, and both have been producing pretty well. The dolphin are definitely “here” now, and we’ve been finding them from as shallow as 50ft(chasing bait onto the reef), and out to 650 ft. with consistency. The last few days the ticket was a color change in 450 feet that was very strong and full of weed/birds just due south of Looe Key [...]

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Marathon Offshore- Sailfish and Nice Mahi

Florida Sportsman member: TeamTeke

My luck changed for the better this past Saturday with folks from Boca Raton, the Rotenbergs and their friend David. We worked out from KCB in a Southeast direction staying mostly in the 450-650′ range. We had a nice surprise of a sailfish that came in open ocean with the fish taking a lure without ballyhoo. Billy Bait Super Magnum in dolphin colors. Never caught a sail before on just a lure [...]

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Memorial Weekend in the Tortugas

Florida Sportsman member: mtbrider85

I have fished in Key West growing up my whole life and never made the trip out to Dry Tourtugas. So a few friends and coworkers of mine decided to plan a trip out for the holiday weekend. We left friday morning after loading up on bait, fuel, and ice. Stoped at the Sub wreck, caught a alamaco jack, and a large, what I thought was, a big grunt…but was informed it was a margate. It was the first I’ve ever caught. After that we went onto the reef to try spearfishing and load up on some live ballyhoo [...]

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Port Largo Tails

Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton

Today I went out with Carl for the 3rd time and Jeff and Tyler for the second time. We left port largo at 7 Am picked up some pin fish traps and didn’t get many, so we went out to 55 feet anchored up and the current was going south and slow, Ocean was 1 foot and water was cloudy.

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Old Friends Fish the Keys

Florida Sportsman member: TeamTeke

We planned the reunion of friends from the late 1970′s and early 1980′s who lived in the mountains of Colorado. We were all fishing and hunting buddies from Summit County, Colorado. This is the ski country region 75 miles west of Denver- Breckenridge, Keystone and Copper Mountain. Life has taken us all different directions and careers [...]

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Keys Dolphin Report

Florida Sportsman member: CaptBill

My good friend DogDoc(Bert) and I left at noon and found a weedline in 700. Nothing active until we found a little debris and I started chunking ballyhoo while Bert jigged. He has been able to bring a school up from the depths in the past. After 10 minutes the school could be seen and we boated several schoolies on pitch bait and lures.

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Fishing the Humps

Florida Sportsman member: TeamTeke

TeamTeke had the pleasure of fishing with Dan Bloomquist and his lady friend Evamarie Buskirk from Kalkaska, MI. today on a deep offshore trip to the Marathon Hump. We got an early start and were blessed with calm seas but heavy overcast skies all day. Rain threatened throughout the day but we only had a short sprinkle in early afternoon. The air was heavy and the humidity high [...]

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Key West Dolphin!

Florida Sportsman member: Got TA Go

After taking a little trip, to New York, to take “Roll Tide” back to her homeport on Long Island I needed a fishing fix. We had planned to stop in the Bahamas for some fishing along the way, but mother nature kept the winds up…so outside of hand-lining some Trout, Lookdowns, Ladyfish and Stingrays in various Marinas…there was no fishing included in over 1,000 miles of water.

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Yuri Trip

Florida Sportsman member: Spoonman

When you have a Yuri trip booked it is hard to sleep the week before, at least for me. Particularly because the weather the week before was 4 to 6 foot seas and 15 to 20 knot winds which is hard fishing and not very comfortable. The seas the whole trip was 1 foot or less as you can see in the picture of Al with one of his Kingfish. Three of the six parties on this trip went down early on the 6th in the hopes of securing bait. Glenn unfortunately was hit broad side and his car was disable which put a wrench in the bait situation.

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Big Pine Key Fishing

Florida Sportsman member: Gamekilla

Left the house around 8 a.m. and headed out to about 150 feet and got our troll on, nothing until about 550 where we spot a white crab trap buoy. At about half mile we head that way to check it out and it is attached to what looks like a small parachute….needless to say SCORE! We notice a big triple tail on it. The area is full of dolphin but they are small…so we catch about 10 to 15 letting them all go except the couple that were not fortunate with an easy release [...]

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A Nice Surprise

Florida Sportsman member: INTREPID377

If it was possible to anchor there, I would. We didn’t catch a fish outside of 500′ all week and very few inside of 300′. Today most of the boats went further offshore because the weather allowed it. I heard very few positive reports on the radio. Don’t give in to the temptation to run “far”[...]

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Islamorada Grouper Opener

Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy

After getting blown and rained out the last few days of April and Tuesday, we finally managed to get out there on Wednesday and today. The grouper season started out very good for us with limit catches of blacks and gags the first two days so far. A few of the wrecks have been an instant bite as soon as you hit bottom and they’ve been biting on the edge of the reef as well [...]

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Wind, Waves and a Few Fish

Florida Sportsman member: INTREPID377

Yesterday was good because the winds DROPPED to only 20 to 25 knots. We were limited in the number of lines we could troll and trolling into the seas wasn’t a good idea. We made it out as far as 425′ but found more action in close around 300′. At about 12 miles out we noticed a nearly one degree jump in water temperature. Not sure if the stream could be in that close (doubt it) but there was an edge there for sure [...]

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Loaded up in the Tortugas

Florida Sportsman member: duke6543

This trip was booked when we got off the boat last year so there were 360 days of anticipation for this trip. The six of us met at the boat on Stock Island and made a quick trip to Duval Street for a couple cold ones and then back to the Hog Fish Grill for a good stuffing before we loaded the boat with everything we would needed for the next four days, beer, food, tackle and more beer [...]

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Mixed Bag Reef Fishing

Florida Sportsman member: NauticalWheeler

A bit breezy for offshore (for us anyway), so we went exploring to the Marquesas and played with snappers and jacks in a couple of the channels. On the way back played with some more jacks, snappers, etc. in the channels draining the Lakes Passage. The best fish of the day was this mutton my wife caught in one of the channels. She has some mutton magic going on…she has caught several good ones over the past couple of years. She caught another nice one in the NW Channel a few days ago.

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Lots of Tuna, Mahi, and Big Amberjack

Florida Sportsman member: TeamTeke

Fished this past Monday with Matt & Jennifer Ruff from North Carolina. They wanted a Hump trip and the weather was a question mark up until the morning of the trip. Winds had been 20 knots but luckily it calmed down on Monday morning.

We got an early start at 7am leaving from Capt. Hook’s Marina at Vaca Cut. It was somewhat bumpy but we averaged about 22 knots on the ride out. When we got to the Hump it was a pleasure to see that I was the first boat out there. Arriving early or staying late is what you want to do to find the tuna active and on top.

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Reef/Bar Success

Florida Sportsman member: NauticalWheeler

First day on the water in KW this year. Beautiful day…seas flat. Went out a little past Western Dry Rocks looking for yellowtail. Scouted around the reef and bar, and didn’t mark any fish…at least no obvious schools. Meanwhile, saw some nice weed lines, with fish busting… false albacore/bonito and ceros mainly. We chased those around for a while and caught this nice cero probably at least 5 lb and a nice flag yellowtail under the weeds on a spoon near the surface [...]

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Key West Reef Fishing

Florida Sportsman member: Got TA Go

I’ve been out fishing the last few days and took the day off today to get some rest and get caught up on paperwork as well as other misc “stuff”.

On Thursday, I was out fishing with the Adler family aboard their 45′ Silverton (Eagle VI). We had the grandkids aboard and needed to put them on some fish before they headed home on Friday. It was blowing a little more than the kids were prepared for, so I took the safe route and took them to the North West Channel for some assured catching in calm waters.

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Keys Swordfish Impresses

Captain Kenny Spaulding, Angler Mike McIntyre

This 520-pound swordfish was caught last week on the Caribsea out of Islamorada with Captain Kenny Spaulding. The 2-hour battle waged in 1,000 feet of water, but angler Mike McIntyre, of Ft. Myers, was finally victorious. The fish was officially weighed at Bud ‘N’ Mary’s Marina.

The Reef and Luck

Florida Sportsman member: urbanRenewal

Vicky is down from VA visiting so we did offshore trolling the other day, trying to get her hooked up with Mahi and got skunked. The next day was diving for lobster. She found lots out there but most were shorts! Then a day of diving on Looe Key which is a can’t miss proposition. We were one for three and today was the day for reef fishing [...]

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Key West Tourney Fishing

Florida Sportsman member: Got TA Go

“I guess the easiest thing to do is post some “Fish Porn” so that everyone can see the variety that was caught over the weekend during the Tourney. Keep in mind that “lines-in” was at 8:30 am each day and “lines-out was at 3:00.”

Full results are posted on the Key West Fishing Tournament Homepage.

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Quick Gulf Side Report

Florida Sportsman member: Got TA Go

Over in General…I said that I was fishing today no matter what. Seas were good, scattered rain, Strong tides (full moon), green water, not too bad and cool…Fished just West/Southwest of Smith Shoal. Caught Cobia, Grouper, Mangrove/Yellowtail Snapper, Grouper (all Reds) and various Jacks and Bluefish [...]

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Another Slammer!

Florida Sportsman member: urbanRenewal

Well, I must be living right or something ! For the second time in three days we’ve put a big Mahi in the boat. Two days ago it was with Dave on his boat in 275 feet off American Shoal. Today Susan and I took advantage of the great weather to head back offshore on our boat and hooked up in 575 feet just on the outside edge of the ups and down. Just like 3 days ago, it was the only hit we had all day [...]

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Islamorada Slammer Dolphin and Wahoo

Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy

Fishing has been pretty good down here in Islamorada lately. This report is a few days old, but we had Pat and the boys from South Dakota out for 2 days late last week and managed to show them a great time. On day 1 we started out catching kingfish just off the edge of the reef on live cigar minnows which made for some fast action. After warming the guys up with our limit of kings and a nice blackfin tuna I decided to hit some of the deeper wrecks in the 200 foot range and put a few nice mutton snapper in the box [...]

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Marquesas Snapper

Florida Sportsman member: Deep Penetration

Thursday night I go through the regular routine of readying all the tackle, boat, food, and miscellaneous items. All the while, in the back of my mind, I’m constantly thinking to myself if the trailer is ready for the 160 miles to KW and if boat engines are up to the 35 miles to Tail End. Luckily, a few trips out of Miami in recent weeks had given me a little sense of security. Friday morning 3 am and we’re loaded and on our way down.

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Dolphin and Wahoo!

Florida Sportsman member: Hooked Up Key West

Had a trip yesterday and today and went trolling for both to try and get some nice fish. Yesterday we managed to get some nice schoolies and lost a wahoo. Today we went two for three on wahoo. The weather was really nice both days. Scattered weeds around and the dolphin were under birds. All fish caught on Ballyhoo.

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Recent freshwater fishing reports from all around the state.

Fathers Day Weekend Peacock Bass

Florida Sportsman member: Joupdog1

We woke up early Sunday and drove south to fish some peacock bass. Pulled up to a spot on a canal that we had done good on before and were able to sight fish right away. Most of the fish were in pairs, but we got 6 nice peacocks, 3 on fly from the first spot alone. We hopped around to a few spots the rest of the day and got 3 more before it got too hot for us and we headed home. All around great weekend!

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Big Bites on Lake Okeechobee

Florida Sportsman member: Captain Shane Procell

I was fishing on Lake Okeechobee a few weeks ago with some fellas from Ohio. They had told me that the everglades bass were too easy and they did not care to catch a 100 normal sized bass but would like to catch a few good hawgs. I suggested Lake Okeechobee for some chubby chaseing, which turned out to be a great idea. A week prior to this trip I had found a school with some pretty good sized fish, so I was hoping they were still around. They started off with three some small fish and then then it was on like donkey kong. Bruce was working a BoohYah spinnerbait, clacking it on the surface and making a heck of a fuss. But it did trigger the first chubby of the morning. Then Bruce followed that one with a ten pounder on the same bait, same technique. I made a cast and was looking around to see what was happening in the back of the boat, when I looked back at my frog it was gone. I set up just in case and was rewarded with a heck of a fight from a beautiful nine plus pounder. We fished for 6 hours and got 12 fish. All released to fight another day. I love days like this.

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Miami Peacock Action

Florida Sportsman member: UrbanAnglerMiami

Got a phone call late last night after leaving the IGFA for the 10th Annual World Records Achievement Awards, my old friend Rey wanted to get out for a couple of hours this morning and chase some peas. That we did, after watching a band of rain cruise right by as the sun was just peaking out. It wasn’t too long before we started to get hits, bumps, and super aggressive charges. The water is almost back up to normal levels in most parts, the sun was shinning, winds laid down finally and the peas were out for blood today. Bass thumb was an understatement!

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A Crappie Day on Lake Talquin

Florida Sportsman member: skiff89_jr

Headed over to Talquin bright and early Thursday morning. My girlfriends grandpa has really been wanting to go over there and see how trolling is done. Also had a friend from Tallahassee meet us at the ramp to tag along. With little wind it was a very nice day to be long-lining. I was worried that with the fish we caught 2 weeks being full of eggs and the full moon would have them on bed, but they were not. All our fish came out of deep water in the channels. We probably boated over 150 specks, but with Talquin having a 10 inch limit, we only ended up with 33 keeper specks, a striper, and an aggressive bream.

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Relentless Bass

Florida Sportsman member: syd7792

This girl put up a fight! I was flipping a KVD perfect plastic caffeine shad rigged weightless around trees that had fallen in the water. I twitched the bait twice, let it sink, then when I went to reel in the slack POW! She hit that bait hard! I set the hook and she came jumping out of the water and thats when I knew she was a hog! She did not come easy though! I reeled her up to the left side of my boat where my aunt went to net her but the bass dove right back down under the boat! I took some tension off her and got her back up to the surface but as soon as she saw that net coming down she dove again but towards the front of the boat all the way around to the right side! I thought she was going to break off several times in these few minutes that felt like forever! Finally my aunt was able to net her and I was stoked! My adrenaline was going and my heart was beating like crazy! I went home a very happy girl!

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Stud Peacock on Fly

Florida Sportsman member: UrbanAnglerMiami

Went out with a mission this morning. I wanted to get a decent pea on fly and caught this 23 inch stud male butterfly peacock. He came out of nowhere and crushed my clouser like it owed him money. He swirled on the fly and missed it twice before he tore off some line. My biggest peacock on fly to date in Miami, FL. I almost broke my rod landing this guy.

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Cold Front Peacocks

Florida Sportsman member: UrbanAnglerMiami

Hooked up with a father & son team from Jersey today. It was pretty cold in the am but the winds laid down a bit with clear blue skies all day. The waters are low again and the bite was very slow but picked up after lunch. We caught many largemouth bass, nothing crazy…a bunch of peas and a spotted tilapia to complete a lil’ freshwater slam. Always a pleasure to put people on a new species and cross it off their “bucket list”. We started off the day with a very nice largemouth bass in the a.m. Great way to start the day!

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Hot Bass Bite

Florida Sportsman member: Reel Tease

Saturday went out with my dad to do a little fresh water fishing. Its amazing how lucky we are to live in South Florida. There is such a big variety of fish here in our very own backyard. Anyways we ended up fishing lakes and canals all over Miami Dade and what a great day it was. We caught too many bass to count, and many “Lunkers” as well as the aggressive Peacock Bass. These fish are beautiful. I encourage anyone who has never caught one to go out and catch your self some.

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Action-Packed Lake

Florida Sportsman member: former bluefishinny

John (new member) and I met up and Lake BankerLunker. I lost a SLOB, just as nice as the previous 3 I had landed. After that, John gets this beauty! Same bait…Same technique…

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Rainy Day Bass

Florida Sportsman member: syd7792

The day started out beautiful so my aunt and I decided to hit the water. Once we put the boat in the wind picked up immediately and became very cloudy. To get out of the wind, I went down one of the canals in the pond we were fishing which ends in a big bowl type area. I was flipping up to the bank under some tree limbs that were hanging down, two twitches out of the rod and BAM! There she was!

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Nice Bass at New Spot

Florida Sportsman member: former bluefishinny

Found a new lake! A bag of watermelon seed flukes in pocket, extra EWG weighted hook…bam! I did not weigh it but it was definitely over 8-pounds!

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Peacocks are Plentiful

Florida Sportsman member: lowe-boy

There really is no science to peacocking. Peacocks are territorial and aggressive and will strike at anything you throw at them. My favorite lure for peacocks is the good ol’ rattle-trap. live bait is way to easy and provides zero challenge. Went out Sunday afternoon with Juanito and we got into some great action. Caught 15-20 fish between us in a couple of hours.

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Plethora of Peacocks

Florida Sportsman member: HialeahAngler

Had some time to kill recently so I decided I’d head out to some of the local peacock canals. I was tossing flies and small hardbaits. I lost count of how many I caught, and had a heck of a time! I got a few more pics but they’re all peacock. You get the picture. There’s nothing to it. No special live bait needed. Just get your favorite hardbait or fly and walk the canals. Some of these are from Kendall, and the others are a little further north.

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Personal Best

Florida Sportsman member: Catalyst

My 8 year old caught a nice bass on a super fluke this weekend. His biggest yet. Bass fishing was real good all weekend in western Palm Beach County. Fish were hitting flukes and crankbaits fished slow.

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Sizeable Topwater Bass

Florida Sportsman member: Bob1sh

Hooked a pig tonight on a topwater water Rapala popper. I was working the outside edges of the vegetation and the fish slammed my lure! Thank God for braid[...]

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Some Monster Peacocks

Florida Sportsman member: bigzee20

Florida Sportsman memeber bigzee20 and friends made a little video of them catching some nice sized peacock bass using live striped tilapia for bait.

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Cool Water Peacocks

Florida Sportsman member: UrbanAnglerMiami

Went out yesterday with a buddy of mine to hit up some peacocks. The county is still doing some weed pulling in Miami-Dade at certain canals still…causing the waters to become milky and shuts the fishing down but turns it up in other areas. We rode around for a bit or what I like to call, “urban run ‘n gun”, looking for some December peacocks in Miami, Fl. I sighted three very decent peas in a run off, end plug [...]

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Lake Okeechobee Video Report

Florida Sportsman member: Bass2bucks

I had the pleasure of fishing with an old fishing buddy I hadn’t seen since I moved away for college this weekend. Now that I graduated and finally moved back home to South Florida I will be able to fish my old honey holes and enjoy some of this awesome south florida bass fishing. This particular buddy of mine is this years Florida Bass Federation Champion and taught me a lot about bass fishing I had no clue about. We went out to Lake Okeechobee and tore the bass up. We didn’t have a real pattern we just runned and gunned around the lake fishing different spots a long the way [...]

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December Peacocks in South Florida

Florida Sportsman member: Reel-Deal

Fishing here in Broward has been great lately, even for December. We have been catching tons of peacocks, putting up 10 to 20 fish per trip, with some nice 3 to 6 pound fish mixed in.I can go on and on about each day of fishing but being too much to write about so I’m simply going to post some pics. Hope you all enjoy [...]

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Freshwater Snookin’, Say What?

Florida Sportsman member: Joupdog1

Recently, FS member Joupdog1 stumbled upon an interesting fishery in the Southeast region of the forums. Big bass, pig snook, and rolling tarpon, all living in harmony in the freshwater ecosystem of a local neighborhood lake. Sounds too good to be true! Check out the first post, here.

Hit our new found secret pond and got 3 bass up to 4 pounds, but the highlight of the day came when Chris stuck an upper/over slot snook! This pond is a wonderful thing [...]

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Lake Bassin’ Heating Up

Florida Sportsman member: Brooksrobinson9

“Talked the parents into letting us get out of school early Friday before Thanksgiving Break and man it was a good decision! Saw a pretty sweet sunset while we were out there too!” Fish caught on Little Bear Lake.

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Urban Peacock Bass; November Bite

Florida Sportsman member: UrbanAnglerMiami

Target species; butterfly peacock in late fall, November in Miami, FL. The water is about a foot or so low, the levies are closed, the waters are still and scouting for peacocks the day before a guide wasn’t too promising. I always scout for targeted species a day or two prior to any guide. We had an early shower around 8 am and a light shower a bit later with overcast skies all day, making it very difficult to sight peas. The winds picked up and dropped throughout our 3/4 day guide. Upon calling to inform my client from Miami Lakes about the conditions yesterday afternoon, he gave me the thumbs up and we headed out despite my scouting report and mother nature. This guide was his birthday gift to his 19 yr. old son and the pressure was definitely on [...]

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Targeting Schooling Bass on the St. Johns River

Florida Sportsman member: Bass2bucks

We had an awesome day on the St. Johns River today despite the 20 mph plus winds and 65 degree temperature this morning. To be honest my expectations for today weren’t that great considering this storm we had, the moon phase and the blue bird skies but we still managed to lay the smack down on these bass [...]

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Peacock Paradise

Florida Sportsman member: Reel-Deal

Had the opportunity to take a repeat client and his son out for some peacocks this past weekend. Skies were overcast, and rain occasionally came down, but we pushed through and managed some nice fish. The first two spots didn’t produce very many, but nonetheless, fish were caught. Since the bite wasn’t consistent, we headed to a lake system I’ve nicknamed “The Falls”. Within a single hour, Sehoon and his son tallied 23 peacocks and 6 largemouth bass [...]

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2012 Bass Club “Classic” – Big Toho

Florida Sportsman member: capt louie

The club stayed at Richardson’s Fish Camp for this years end of year tournament. Nice place, VERY quaint, but OK. My father-in-law and I arrived Thursday and got to pre-fish that afternoon and Friday prior to the Saturday/Sunday event. I found some schooling bass and located an area in Goblits Cove that had some current flow, it looked promising Thursday but the next day was a bust. I checked the schoolers and got a decent fish quick so called it a day at noon Friday [...

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Peacock Paradise

Florida Sportsman member: Reel-Deal

Had the opportunity this past Saturday to take my friend and snakehead guide Chris Licato on a Reel-Deal Adventure to Peacock Paradise. After his 30 minute drive down from Coral Springs to Pembroke Pines, I wasted little time, as the first spot produced 8 peacocks, including 3 bulldozers (4+ lbs). Here is just a sample [...]

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Miami Exotics and More

Florida Sportsman member: miket1515

I was awaken by the sound of my alarm so I looked at it and said the hell with this and went back to bed. Way to start my fishing adventure, so I woke up at 8 and thought what now. It’s too late to make the 2 hour trip to Flamingo so I did the next best thing, go freshwater. I had to put away all my saltwater gear and grab my freshwater equipment and off I went. I arrived at Blue Lagoon at around 9 and off I paddled [...]

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Birthday Bassin’

Florida Sportsman member: kodiakzack

Spent my birthday weekend with 5 hours fishing on Friday with a co-worker, and 6 hours Saturday with my son Josh. Co-worker was stoked because he got his biggest bass ever. Josh was stoked because he got his biggest fish this year [...]

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A Summer in Canada

Florida Sportsman member: Docked Wages

Last month LOB and I returned to Northern Saskatchewan Canada for a 10 day extreme fishing excursion. I focused on fly fishing and therefore found myself fishing solo quite a bit. Sunsets at 10:30 p.m. and sunrises at 3:30 a.m. gave us plenty of time to fish. We targeted walleyes, lake trout and northern pike [...]

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Miami Urban Fishing Report

Florida Sportsman member: COBRA

The peacock bass fishing here in Miami is going steady. Good fishing is to be had early and later in the day. The afternoon rain showers are cooling off the temps and creating a good amount of current, which is always a good thing while fishing for peacock bass. They seem to be keying in on the huge hatch of minnows we’ve had this year [...]

The weather and the bite are a couple of things I cannot control. Just like the rest of the country, the everglades is experiencing the dog days of summer. It just get’s plain miserable from mid-morning untill the late afternoon. But even in these unbearable temperatures I have been on a Zara Spook bite all day, everyday for the past month. It’s has been a magical time of fishing.

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Gheenoe Bassin’

Florida Sportsman member: bass-buster

Dropped my Gheenoe in the old neighborhood lake this morning. Fished 2 hours and caught 3 fish, missed 2 others. This one here was the biggest at around 3.5 to 4 pounds, trying again tomorrow [...]

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Big Bass of 2012

Florida Sportsman member: Bass2bucks

Decided to put together a little video of some of the bigger fish we have caught on film this year. I fish a lot of the different lakes around central Florida and have brought friends along with me for a lot of the trips. Here are some of their bass from this year so far. Hope ya’ like the video [...]

Check out the video on YouTube.

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Bassin’ Before the Storm

Florida Sportsman member: jasonstadnik

Went out to a private lake Saturday just before the storm moved in to the Ocala area. Fished for about 4 hours, the fish were turned on. There was a giant school of 1/2 to 1 1/2 pound bass chasing shinners in deep water. Followed them around for half an hour before they went down. We also caught a good number of fish off the weed pockets in about 4 foot of water [...]

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Trip to the Rodman Reservoir

Florida Sportsman member: Bass2bucks

I decided to fish the Rodman Reservoir for the first time ever this weekend. I have always heard what an awesome place to fish it is as well as all the big bass stories that come out of this place so I had to make the trip. Game plan was to leave the house by 4 AM and make the 1hr 30 minute drive to the Kenwood boat ramp in Interlachen, Florida. The boat ramp is a nice two lane ramp with plenty of places to park. I met up with my buddy Matt who like me, has never fished the reservoir either [...]

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Grass Carp Fishin’

Florida Sportsman member: chut03

Here’s my little brother’s first grass carp. Caught on some bread with 10lb test line. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to weigh it as I didn’t have my scale with me and I didn’t want to stress the fish too much. This fish was caught in a medium sized pond in Broward County.

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Okeechobee Bassin’

Florida Sportsman member: Captain Shane Procell

My youth league football and basketball coach came from La. to fish with me in the everglades and on lake Okeechobee. The Lake was tough as a storm with 55 mph wind came through just before dawn but we did manage some fish and a good one to boot. We went into the glades the next day and the fishing was much better [...]

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Backyard Topwater Fun

Florida Sportsman member: Ol’DirtyCaster

This afternoon I did a little messing around with the 7wt in the backyard pond with some sliders I’d cranked out earlier this week. Probably caught somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-12bass in the 1-3.5lb range all on deer hair bugs. No monsters, but still lots of fun.

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Apalachicola Catfish Tournament Report

Florida Sportsman member: CatHunter

We fished The Apalachicola Catfish Tournament on April 28th with some pretty good results, but not enough to win. Unfortunately I chose a bad section of river to fish that was about dried up even still we caught some good fish our biggest was about 12 lbs but I had a buddy on another section of the river that got some good fish his largest was 15 lbs. A 33.5 lb Flathead won the first place prize for largest fish, and 177 lbs took the 1st place for most poundage.

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One for the Wall

Florida Sportsman member: tampaspicer

“I’m going to get it mounted for his birthday. Weighed 7-8 pounds and caught on a topwater. We caught a total of 7 bass in about a hour.”

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Canal Bass Fishing

Florida Sportsman member: bonitabob

It’s not very often I get to spend some time with my son Eric. Like a typical 18 year old, he has better thing things to do then hang out with me. If he’s not working he’s out with the ladies. We both happened to be off work on Monday and decided to hit some canals around the area, specifically the 10 mile canal off of Alico Rd. We have caught some very nice snook there in the past. We started out a little late in the morning and when we arrived we found there was no water coming over the water control dam [...]

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John’s Lake TOAD!

Florida Sportsman member: Bass2bucks

Took my buddy Conner fishing with me today on Johns lake in Clermont Florida. He had a blast and I was able to put him on some bass. The biggest one of the day was actually the first one of the day and we caught him after a few minutes of pulling up on our first spot! I love it when a plan comes together!

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Big Bass!

Florida Sportsman member: Bass2bucks

Next month I have a tournament on Johns Lake in Clermont Florida against a group of guys who are GOOD. When I mean good I mean that if you don’t have at least 5 bass weighing 20 lbs or more than you need not waste your time weighing in. That being said, I know I have my work cut out for me; especially since I have only fished this lake a total of two times before today. My plan of attack today was to look at Navionics charts and find where all the major spawning flats in the lake may be [...]

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Miami Backcountry Report

Florida Sportsman member: COBRA

Well folks it looks like the Peacock Bass in Miami have fared very well through the “winter” months. I took my older son out this morning in some of the southern canals to do some scouting. Turns out not to have been a bad idea. We caught a fresh water slam and some really decent Peacock Bass too. The fish are now in a post spawn mode so their feeding heavily on shad and wild shiners. So you have to make sure the lures or flies your throwing match the hatch. Or you’ll be chunking lures all day with no takes.

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Everglades Bassin’

Florida Sportsman member: Captain Shane Procell

The water has been high and the bite has been hit and miss this winter down south , but the bite is just about to go off in the southern most parts of the everglades. I had Keith and Brandi down from Alabama and they tore up some bass on a combination of Yamamoto wacky rigged senkos, and Heddon torpedos. The largest bass of the day came from a 12″ black and blue Bass Pro Shops worm. The hot bite down south should be just a few days away.

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They Have Been Biting!

Florida Sportsman member: Reaper

Florida Sportsman member Reaper has been having quite the impressive bass bite, check out his forum post to review the pictures!

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Snakehead!

Congratulations to South Florida angler and my friend, Corey Nowakowski for a pending new world record snakehead catch. The fish was caught here in South Florida on a buzz frog. The fished weighed in at 12 pounds, eclipseing the current I.G.F.A. record of 11.8 pounds which was caught Asia.

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Peacock Bass and Snake Head Fishing

Florida Sportsman member: Captain Shane Procell

I had some really great guys down for some snake head and peacock bass fishing. Trude and his father, Jason were fishing one last time together as Trude will be leaving the country for two years. Jason had fished for the peacocks a few years ago with another guide and the trip made quiet an impression on him. We loaded the livewell with shiners and headed south to the motherland of peacock bass. The peacocks were easy to find and more than willing to fight. They boated somehwere around twenty-five with the biggest one tipping the boga at six pounds.

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South Florida Bassin’

Exciting fishing report from a Florida Sportsman Member who took his girlfriend and two nieces fishing along a canal near Holiday Park. Using live shiners, they caught and released over 50 bass. After the girls left for a break, Bass2bucks fished alone for a while.

“I caught the majority of my bass on a watermelon seed Zoom Super Fluke and a june bug colored worm. Also quite a few on a Swimmin Senko (Christmas colored) and a few on a horny toad. I didnt see any bass on the beds which is what I hoped for but we still did manage to catch quite a few decent fish. All in all it was a great trip. My girlfriend caught her personal biggest (6 pounds) and my niece caught her biggest as well (5 lbs). Cant wait to get back down south and do it all over again. Until then I’m back in Orlando with a bass boat.”

Miami Peacock Bass and More

Florida Sportsman Member: COBRA

Today I had the opportunity to guide a younger angler in the canal systems for some Peacock bass. His birthday was recently and his parents chartered me for a half day trip for his present. The morning started off a lil slow due to the colder temps we’ve been having lately, but it sure picked up after the sun came up a bit. My angler Chris had his hands full trying to battle the P’s in close quarters. But he came out great landing about a dozen and missing a few more. The surprise of the trip was a real nice freshie Snook that beat the Peacock bass to a well placed lure by Chris. Boy was he HAPPY!! Anyways it was a great trip and I hope we can do it again sometime. We took some pics of the day for yous to check out. Thanks for reading our report.

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Fishing far offshore? A life raft may be your most important boating investment.

Switlik “Man Overboard Module” deployed.

Warming weather and the arrival of migratory fish draws more and more boaters far from shore this time of year. Many of us are already making plans for long-range trips to The Bahamas (see feature this month), Middle Grounds, Dry Tortugas and other far-flung fisheries.

Let’s take a break from the daydreams for a moment and look at a serious piece of boating gear: a life raft. When a nightmare becomes real, that raft, next to an EPIRB, ensures you’ll have a second chance.

Rafts are expensive, generally bulky, and let’s face it, the odds are astronomical that you’ll ever need one. Most of us could go offshore every weekend from now until we’re too old to swing a gaff and never have need of a life raft.

But suppose you did?

Many tragic endings would have only been fascinating cocktail hour stories if a life raft had been on the boat.

Switlik “Man Overboard Module” ready for deployment.

While most fishing boats will remain afloat even when awash, those over 20 feet do not have to have upright flotation, and in rough seas even those with upright flotation often don’t stay upright.

What’s more, you may have to get off the boat fast—a fire offshore gives no option but to get away from the boat, quickly, before the fuel tanks ignite.

And these days, some very serviceable rafts are neither space-consuming nor prohibitively expensive.

The Switlik MOM 600, for example, is a four-person inflatable that comes packed in a case just larger than a throwable boat cushion and weighing only 15 pounds. It’s vacuum-packed and requires service only every five years—price is $999;www.switlik.com.

And Revere’s Coastal Compact rafts store in suit-case like bags weighing as little as 16 pounds for a four-person raft and measuring hardly bigger than a tacklebox when stowed. Typical cost is $999 for a two-person raft to $1,699 for a six-person raft;www.reveresupply.com.

The right raft for you will have space for the maximum number of people you’re likely to have aboard for an offshore foray. It will have drogues or other water-catching sea-anchor devices to keep it from being blown downsea the instant it inflates, and also to help it stay upright in gale-force winds—some can kite in the wind without these devices.

And your choice will depend on how far offshore you typically operate. Rafts suitable for operation to 20 miles out are designated “coastal” models by most manufacturers; they are single-tube rafts designed for short-term use. Those for operation farther out are designated “offshore” models and are built with at least two air chambers and most also have a sun/rain shelter. Prices start at around $2,500. There’s also a “trans-ocean” designation, but specs and price of these exceed the needs of most Florida anglers.

Whatever the raft, you’ll want an emergency gear kit or “ditch bag” either stowed inside or attached to it by a strong cord. That kit will contain at least a half-gallon of fresh water for each person aboard, a few MREs or other nonperishable, energy-rich food in waterproof packs, a flashlight, a signaling mirror, a compass, a whistle, a knife and a fishing line along with a few jigs. Plastic space blankets are useful both for warmth at night and as sun-shields by day, and can also be used to catch rainwater if the opportunity arises.

Last but not least, an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) signaling device that will beam your location to rescuers should be attached to the raft or in your ditch bag. Personal Locator Beacons start at around $150, while full-featured EPIRBs that can broadcast for days in all conditions start at about $650.

Stow the raft and gear bag where you can reach them in seconds, not minutes; by definition, emergencies come at you fast. Many stow in a fiberglass container that allows them to be mounted on the bow deck or cabin roof where they can be reached instantly in an emergency and will float free if the boat sinks abruptly.

That life raft may never be used, but just knowing it’s there on every trip offshore will give you and your crew a feeling of security that’s well worth the cost. FS

In this Florida Sportsman video seminar, Capt. George Gozdz explains how to properly secure your boat while staying overnight at the beach and spoil islands, especially in areas with extreme high and low tides. Capt. Gozdz illustrates how using a “pulley anchor system” will keep your boat in the wet stuff while the tide reveals the shoreline.

This “pulley system” can utilize either two anchors (one in the water behind the boat and one on the shore) or an anchor and a spike and ring eye (anchor behind the boat and ring eye on shore). Run a line through the ring eye on each end and use the line to pull the boat in and out from the shore.

Capt. Gozdz also explains a method of using the Power-Pole and an anchor system. Watch the video!

Recent offshore fishing reports from the West Central region.

Rough Conditions and Worthy Catches

Florida Sportsman member: Jayzilla

After another 2 hours of getting the crap beat out of us we finally made it out deeper to the first spot. We made a couple of drifts and it produced a mixed bag of jacks, gags, and mangos. Anyone who has ever fished with me knows that I hate to anchor but with the stiff winds, big swells, and ripping current it was a must. We dropped the hook and it was perfect, 7 feet directly in front of the spot. The next two hours we proceed to fill a 150 quart cooler with big mangos. It would have been more snappers but we kept getting the occasional by catch or break off from big jacks or gags. Just before I decided to leave that spot I managed to catch a nice rusty belly on 30 pound snapper tackle. I actually broke the fish off earlier because when I got him up I saw two circle hooks buried in the corner of his mouth. Greedy grouper couldn’t stop eating those 3 inch pinfish.

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Sarasota Mixed Bag

Florida Sportsman member: srqmynatt

We ran out to a spot in 135 feet between New Pass and Longboat pass, I had found these numbers back in April and new right away it was covered in snapper. I fished it once or twice in May just seeing what was there and found out the Mangos and ARS were stacked up 20 feet off the bottom. I brought the numbers with me and sure enough we marked a nice pile of fish so we set the anchor. We started with smaller gear and worked our way up to the red grouper. Had a nice mixed bag[...]

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Way Offshore – Grouper & Amberjack

Florida Sportsman member: Jerseygirl

We decided to hit some numbers past the 400 foot contour line. Definitely worth the run time, although next time need to budget for more line in the water time for further exploration. Spent most of the day running, but the fish were there. While we did come up empty trolling, deep dropping was interesting. Neil F. bagged a nice Yellow-Edge Grouper around 25 pounds and I managed a 50 plus pound AJ that hit on the bottom at 430 feet (not fun, especially when you are expecting another big deep-water Grouper). Looking forward to more time fishing this depth to better learn how to approach it.

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Longboat Pass Gags, Kings and More

Florida Sportsman member: rreed

We headed out of Longboat Pass at first light, with a few dozen shrimp and lots of old bait to cut up. The pinfish catching was slow, due to large blue runners tangling and breaking off sabikis. Wind and tide opposition made for slow going without getting soaked in small boat.

As we got out deeper the sun broke through the clouds and seas laid down for a nice day. We drifted for Red Grouper first, quickly putting keepers in the box around 90 feet. We saw some structure during drift and threw out marker. On second try we were on the spot. Given the last few trips RG success came quickly, we brought different setups and shrimp to try to diversify the catch. I brought a 4000 reel with 20 pound mono/ 20 foot 20 pound fluro sliding 3 ounce to 3/O hook, this caught all the mangos.

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St.Pete Offshore

Florida Sportsman member: 06powerstroke

Launched the boat out of Fort Desoto around 5:30 PM and cruised over to the Skyway to put a few live baits in the livewell, bait wasn’t hard to find at all. Cruised out to the pipeline at sunset, tried a few different spots and picked up a few Mangos hear and there. On our way to the next spot watching the bottom machine found a sweet spot! It was loaded with Mangos! Made short work of filling our limit and caught my personal largest. Just before the sun was coming up we cruised out to 125 feet of water to try and find decent AJ’s. Couldn’t find them anchored so we started trolling. We were getting Bonita one after another which is fun to catch for me but then the rod bent over good and line was screaming off. We hooked into a decent Blackfin Tuna! This was my first tuna I have ever caught.

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Snapper and Blackfin Tuna Action

Florida Sportsman member: Navy_Fishing

Headed out towards the Elbow to see if we could hit the big fish for a 2nd trip in a row. Started out fishing the Pipeline in about 155 feet and hit a few mangos here and there. Most were of decent size, 2-4 pounds. A few 5 pounders came over the side as well. Then it happened. One of the regulars, Ritchie hooked up with a fast moving fish that turned out to be a nice blackfin tuna that ate one of his pigfish being sent down on a knocker rig for mangos. I was working a 1 ounce jighead with live bait and got hammered about 5 feet off the bottom and ended up boating a 25 pound Blackfin.

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Prefront Bite

Florida Sportsman member: srchn4salmon

I was a bit skeptical only going about 9 miles out for Mangrove Snapper but the first 2 fish that came up were a couple small mangs. After that we did everything we could to get away from the “endangered” Gags. It was an amazing bite, every drop produce Gag after Gag. Thankfully a couple Mangs were mixed in to get some fish in the cooler. Finally tally for the day was 8 Mangs brought home, biggest being 21”, at least 40 gags with more than half of those being keepers. The biggest came on a triple hook up that we all managed to land our fish.

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[...]

An All Florida Week to Remember

Florida Sportsman member: harbison

Florida weather, Florida fishing, Florida shrimp, and Florida hunting, all in one week. Who could ask for anything more? Sunday, three P.M., twenty eight emotionally charged anglers are ready to go, ready to challenge the monsters of the Middle Grounds. The Florida Middle Grounds, 100 miles Northwest of beautiful Madeira Beach, Florida, consist of underwater formations of stony hard and soft coral growths, ledges with twenty-thirty foot drops, and numerous ship wrecks. The 330 square mile Middle Grounds provides a natural aquarium for many species of fish and a tropical wonderland for the serious angler[...]

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MLK Day Snapper Trip

Florida Sportsman member: sagory

I had the day off of school for MLK day and the weather looked good for a trip offshore. I called a few buddies and we did the first trip of 2013 in my boat and it was a good one. We fished 90-100 feet. and the mangroves were chewing. Most fish were caught on light jigs or knocker rigs. We headed in around 1:30 and had over 30 mangroves and a handful of red grouper. The biggest snapper was just shy of 25 inches. It was a great day.[...]

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Hogs, Snapper, and Grouper

Florida Sportsman member: Navy_Fishing

Took out the dusky for it’s 2nd fishing trip since being completed. Had an old Navy friend come over from Lakeland to fish with us. I also brought along two guides that I have come to know since working at O’Neill’s, Capt. Lee Blick and Capt. Craig Weaver.We set out about 0800 and headed west. Got out to a snapper spot that has been good to us for the last few trips. Fishing was slow to start but picked up as we moved around the area to find the fish.[...]

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Foggy Snapper, Grouper, & More

Florida Sportsman member: Navy_Fishing

My buddy has been working for the last 14 months restoring an 85 foot Dusky. Some of you may have actually seen his thread on the Hull Truth. well, he finally got it complete and after a quick sea trial last Friday to make sure it floated and ran as desired, we decided to take her out for the maiden fishing trip. Left out of O’Neill’s at 8ish and the fog was still thick. After a slow trek out of the bay through Pass-a-Grille, we finally were able to get up to speed and head 30ish miles west. seas were a bit sportier than the forecast called for, but we pushed on with hopes they would lie down as advertised. Got to the area we wanted to fish and came upon a spot that lite up the bottom machine about half a mile from our intended stop. We dropped down some sardines and it was game on with the mangos and yellowtail. We boated 4 or 5 within the 1st 10 minutes and then the rudderfish hit us. We couldn’t get away from them.

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Kings in the Fog

Florida Sportsman member: rreed

I haven’t been able to get offshore for awhile, with my wife past 8 months pregnant I needed to stay close. The newest fisherman has joined the family and things are getting back to normal. On the drive to friend’s house was thinking I hadn’t gotten a king trip in this year, just a passing thought on long drive. Load boat with ice and old cooler full of old bait from freezer. We were met with a real challenge safely navigating to pass. Sabiki’d blue runners and cigar minnows, just outside of pass. Headed for 85 foot area we fished last few times out. Got two keeper Red Grouper on drift and tossed marker out. Started chunking old bait and caught short reds and grunts while slick built up. Once the chum was built flat lines didn’t last more than a minute in the water. Baits intended for the bottom didn’t make it. Didn’t prepare for kings, had 40 pound mono with circle hooks on flat lines. Lost quite a few, but landed some beasts [...]

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Middle Grounds Action

Florida Sportsman member: JerseyGril

The action picked up pretty quick with a Dolphin (small) right away, then a 20 pound class Blackfin Tuna not long after that hit the shotgun line. After that we were nearly spooled by what turned out to be a monster Kingfish around 60 pounds that we released, to bad there were not any tourneys going on as this fish would have won.The King hit a Marauder plug as did the next Tuna in the box (15 pounds), then were nearly spooled again on the same lure by a big fish that broke off after a 30 minute fight. That killed the party as we did not have any more Marauder plugs. Not bad action for 2 hours of trolling, unfortunately with short daylight this time of year, we had to crank up and make the run home soon after. [...]

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Clearwater Grouper

Florida Sportsman member: releasegear

Got the kids up and decided to head out for a quick quick grouper trip . Found pinfish and blue runners a mile off the beach in 20 ft. Went to a good bottom area in 40 ft and anchored. Every bait down got eaten. We a mix of red and gag grouper with the biggest gags all taken on blue runners.After 2 hours our live bait was gone and it was time to go. The kids are reeling in a small red grouper and Im reeling up my bait. As we get to the surface a tiger shark goes after the red grouper, misses but grabs my pinfish and then tries to get the grouper again. i quickly back the drag off has he starts running – now hes tangled in the red grouper line, goes around the anchor, then heads back underneath the boat and kids are screaming “shark” non stop ! [...]

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Plenty of Scamp out of Egmont

Florida Sportsman member: perlmman1234

Went out with a buddy on his bad a** 35 foot center console. First stop at 20 miles or so and reeled in a couple keeper reds. Bait was northern mackerel live shrimp and live 2 inch greenbacks. Second stop was around 45 miles out and let me tell you the scamp were on fire. I cant remember the last time I caught scamp like this. Every shrimp down barely made it to the bottom. As you can see in the video there are no shortage of them at this spot [...]

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Plenty of Bait, Plenty of Action.

Florida Sportsman member: releasegear

A few of us had the afternoon open so we headed out of clearwater. Marked bait as I was heading out of the pass , steve threw the net out the back and loaded us up with scaled sardines. Took 3 of us to bring it in, filled the well and 2 five gallon buckets – still had the deck covered. Stop by the rube and toss out a few free lines. slammed right away and steve gets a cobia. Next bait out, slammed again. This one almost spooled my battle with 320 yds of 30lb power pro. I got a nice king. The boca grip was going between 38-42 lbs . [...]

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Pass-A-Grille Offshore Variety

Florida Sportsman member: yelladevil17

With the recent winds, we wanted to wait a few days until the water cleared up. My cousin Tan wanted to show some east coast friends what it was like to fish on our side of the state. We loaded up with lots of live shrimp, white bait, and frozen sardines. Great day to be out on the water…overcast clouds, slight breeze, small chop. Mystery sighting of the day: As we were going out, Tan spotted a sailfish…he said it popped its bill and sail out of the water while chasing bait. That would have been a cool sight, considering we were only in about 50-60′ and 20 mi out. We got to our first spot in 65′. Gene was the first to drop down a shrimp and gets railed on his light tackle setup. The fish kept digging and running all over the boat. After a tough fight, we netted a nice 35″ cobia[...]

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Box of Red Grouper, King for the smoker

Florida Sportsman member: CaptainBly

About 8 miles into our trip I see a really nice show on the screen. I Turn around and the bottom just exploded with color. Throw the jug. Drift it a couple times and some almost keeper reds come over the side. But way bigger than the last spot so we were hopeful. We decided to anchor.

Within an hour and a half we had our limit of Red Grouper and a nice king that is about to go on the smoker in about 20 minutes… Not a bad day for no plan,not hitting the water until almost 11:00am, and not putting a line in until noon[...]

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Spooktacular Mahi and Mangro Snapper

Florida Sportsman member: indabox.bc

“Headed out of John’s Pass Friday afternoon for some Friday night mangros. Ran into a school of mahi 30 miles out. Luckily, we had plenty of live whitebait to keep them at the boat.After an hour of mayhem, 33 mahi were In Da Box and we left them biting to get set up for the nighttime mangro bite[...]”

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Girl Power on the Grounds

Florida Sportsman member: harbison

The Florida Fisherman, Hubbard’s Marina, has been on dry dock for a few weeks. Spent my weekends attending Jesuit High School football games instead of fishing the Florida Middle Grounds. That is about to change, the Florida is back. Forty eight anglers and a crew of five are busting at the seams in anticipation. Let’s go! The weather forecast is great, the moon is full, the Florida is loaded with enough food & drinks to supply a small, make that a large, army. It’s time! [...]

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Fishing the Forty Fathom Break

Florida Sportsman member: harbison

Friday means deep water time for the Florida Fisherman, Hubbard’s Marina. The moon phase is perfect for an all out assault on the ‘Monsters of the Elbow & Forty Fathom Break.’ Thirty dedicated anglers wait to board the Florida Fisherman ll. This is going to be all out war.

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Hogfish on Artificial

Florida Sportsman member: jewfish7

Monday’s trip hit a little snag when we got to the marina, they were out of live shrimp. We never head offshore without a livewell full of shrimp, everything eats them. Instead we got a box of dines and castnetted up some pins and greenbacks.We ran out to the pipe knowing that there is some big mangs out there [...]

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ARS Pay Back Time

Florida Sportsman member: harbison

Friday, June first, 2012, American red snapper season opens. The very best to one & all, let’s go get them. Finally! It’s ARS pay back time. No more free meals.Forty four anglers, and a full crew, departs Hubbard’s Marina on the Florida Fisherman ll. We will be fishing two days before the full of the moon, the best time of the month. Will the fish be hungry? Let’s go see.

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Gag Reflex

Florida Sportsman member: flatsrunna

Took my buddy out today for a lil’ action, he hasn’t fished in 12 years. So I rolled up to the marina at about 9:30. Droped 300 dollars on gas, loaded the boat, and we were off to the nearest flat to catch bait. After a few tosses we had bait and we were off to the wild blue yonder. Feels like we threw back 100 plus fish today. Bite was sick.

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Giant Cobia in Clearwater

Florida Sportsman member: ericj359

A good buddy asked me if I wanted to go out on his newly re-powered Calcutta 263 well I said said “OH YEAH!” A lot different from the 18 foot Mako I usually run. We went out to our favorite cobia spot to see if anybody was home, it was pretty rough at 45 feet, in about 3-6 foot swells the boat handled it great. We ran 25 mph the whole way through it and didn’t get wet. Enough about sounding like a Calcutta commercial and back to fishing. We anchored up and started to chum and I hooked up on the biggest blue runner I’ve ever seen, it was huge! [...]

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Full Moon Mango Madness

Florida Sportsman member: Navy_Fishing

Showed up at Mango’s house and loaded the boat. Heading out to challange the GOM beasts would be Mango, Kokosing Lover, Manny (Mango’s friend) and myself. Got the boat in the water sometime between 12:30 and 1 PM. Headed out of Blind Pass and started looking for the bait. Got a few cigars and runners and then headed out to about 100′. Started to drift over form fishy looking hard bottom and I get hooked up by a big fish only to have my knot to the swivel come undone [...]

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Offshore AMI

Florida Sportsman member: JEIBE

Finally had a day off with school and work being so crazy so Capt Vern treated me to a trip. Started off at the 3 mile and sabiki’d up pins, blue runners, pig fish, sardines, you name it. We were going to run out to 100 or so in search of some big fire trucks but we found a bottom chunk we couldnt pass up. Several gag grouper in the large and larger range were caught. RGs got in the action as well with bringing 4 keepers home…between 20-23″ [...]

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Cobia’s out of Clearwater

Florida Sportsman member: ericj359

While most of you were fishing the king of the beach. I didn’t enter cause kings are a hit or miss with me. Headed out to a public wreck in 45 feet about 10 miles out looking for some light tackle bonita mackerel action, well that wasn’t the case. Filled the well at a bridge in the intercoastal so we started chumming, the first bait in the water gets slammed not even 5 minutes in [...]

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Middle Grounds Trip

Florida Sportsman member: harbison

Once again we challenge the Florida Middle Grounds. Once again the weekend weather prediction is less than perfect; in fact, down right lousy. Forty eight anglers hope for the best. Low pressure or no low pressure, we know what the Grounds has to offer. Most of us arrive at Hubbard’s Marina early. One reason is to watch the 1/2 day boat returning. Sure enough, the Friendly Fisherman returned one P.M. Friday afternoon. Grunts were targeted. Grunts, small but very good eating. Also some very impressive king fish and mackerel were landed.

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75 Miles

Florida Sportsman member: electricblue

Ran out for opening grouper and got on the mangos something nice. See the 8#er. Had the ARS chummed up from 200′. Folks these bastards have doubled in size. It’s almost like they know they get a free pass. Some sort of hope and change I guess…. $1000 in fuel, couple of fish, day on the water, priceless…Life is good.

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First Cobia- and much more!

Florida Sportsman member: timbo615

Went out to run the boat because it hadn’t been ran in a while. Engine had a hard time and thought it was gas. Got out 4 to 5 miles and started trolling. Dropped a big lipped lure down and was about to get the spoon out and boom the lure gets killed. Stopped the boat and he was not moving. Maybe I got hung up. Motor back over it and he comes out. About a 28 in gag. Have no idea how he got in the rocks trolling. I turned the engine off and when I went to turn it back on, nothing. I opened a compartment and smelled gas. The water fuel separator is spitting out gas [...]

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Kingfish out of Hubbard’s

Florida Sportsman member: TennesseeDave

Me and my neighbor went on Hubbard’s Sunday morning half-day. Trolling on the way out we caught a bunch of Spanish mackerel. One was at least 4-5 pounds (sweet). These were caught using a #1 planer and a green drone spoon off one of the corner spots. My buddy used a silver spoon with a small trolling weight wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy back [...]

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Cobia!

Florida Sportsman member: GEO

Cobia have started to show up at the mouth of Tampa Bay to just inside the Skyway Bridge in decent numbers to where I think we are going to have a great cobia year. On back to back trips we were able to catch four while sight casting to them. Pinfish or scaled sardines under a popping cork is a deadly combo for these brown bombers. They fight great especially the second time after they see the boat. Look for these fish to be around reefs, bridge pilings channel markers and similar structure [...]

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Gags, a Mango, and a Porgy

Florida Sportsman member: Navy_Fishing

LateAgain, Myself and an old Navy friend from Lakeland went out to try our luck with the Mangos this morning and to say the bite was tough would be an understatement. Only 1 Mango wanted to come home for dinner, so we of course obliged him or maybe her. Gags were hot and eating everything we dropped down. Sardines, live shrimp, dead shrimp. Largest went 11 something pounds [...]

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Big Gags and a Frisky Shark

Florida Sportsman member: jewfish7

The weather looked decent so I tried to get a crew together but only my buddy Kit could ride out,oh well time to go find something willing to put up a battle. On the way out about 12 miles out we see something that looked very stange, there was a loon diving down and there was a huge colorspot under him.We pulled up and to our surprise it was a massive whale shark with a school of bait fish all around him,the loon was diving down getting him some.I made the mistake of taking my eye off the whale shark fetching the camera,when I got he dove down never to be seen again [...]

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The Bottom Bite

Florida Sportsman member: Gordo35

Ended up fishing with 3 buddies today. I just put the boat back at O’Neill’s the other day and we departed from my lift around 6:50. Stopped at the PAG marker and got some smallish Pinfish to go with the live shrimp I got from the marina. Headed out to the Egmont channel markers and got some nice Sardines and Cigar Minnows to join the crowd in the livewell [...]

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Can You Say Tuna!

Florida Sportsman Member: timbo615

My uncle is a long time local who moved to Tennessee. Whenever he comes in town I make sure I have plenty of time to take him out. This past week Thursday-Saturday looked to be the best days. Took another person out with us, his son-in-law, never really been offshore before. We ran out to the pride in hopes of playing around with some aj’s. We get there and the aj’s are all over. Uncle throws out a soft plastic and gets hooked up. He saw that it wasn’t a aj as it was really silver [...]

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