The offshore crowd prays for mild temperatures and long lulls between wind-driven cold fronts. Moderate temperatures should keep fair numbers of sailfish in the waters off Port Canaveral, Sebastian Inlet and Fort Pierce. If we get strong fronts, sails head south toward Stuart and the Palm Beaches.

Don’t be surprised to find cobia a few miles from the beaches if temperatures are mild—resulting in water readings of 67 to 69 degrees. When that happens, large manta rays move inshore, and you can bet cobia will move along with them. Sometimes the few degrees of temperature variance between Port Canaveral and Sebastian Inlet pushes more cobia into the waters off Sebastian. As a rule, those fish hold in 40 to 60 feet, and again usually with rays. Canaveral anglers are all but sure to find cobia, plus kingfish, around 8-A Reef and Pelican Flats. Small kingfish generally are reliable throughout the winter months in the 70- to 90-foot depths of Pelican Flats.

For small boaters and those wishing to stick to the Port Canaveral buoy line, tripletail should be plentiful. In addition to the buoy chains, tripletail are also drawn to seaweed and floating debris. Historically, Canaveral pro-duces some of the heaviest tripletail taken in the state. Just check the line-class world records in the IGFA records book.

Look for a line of anglers to be heading for the Upper St. Johns River. They’re chasing the migration of American shad, which should be going strong by late January and early February. Water levels on the river could be perfect. Historically, the best catches occur in the Mullet Lake-to-Marina Isle section of the river east of Sanford, and in the deep river bends south of SR 46 west of Mims.

BEST BET: EASTCENTRAL

From mid January to late February, hawg-size bass make for memorable catches in the fresh waters of East Central Florida. Look for excellent reports from the Lake George area of the St. Johns River, the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes and the infamous Stick Marsh near Fellsmere.

Your chances for a big bass will be best during full and new moons when the females and smaller males move inside grass and other shallow areas for spawning. A warming trend following a cold front coinciding with either of those moon phases will make for peak spawning activity. The other extreme—a strong cold front—will shut down the bass.

The 6,000-acre Stick Marsh, which includes the so-called Farm 13 section, continues to make a remarkable comeback, perhaps not equal to the heydays of the early 1990s but certainly as one of Florida’s best bass lakes. Bring the camera because you must release all bass immediately.

The nearby Miami Lakes-Garcia impoundment off SR 512 west of Fellsmere doesn’t get the credit it deserves as a bass haunt, particularly in winter. It doesn’t hold the big 10- and 12-pounders like the Stick Marsh, but it offers steady and usually reliable fishing. And if you want, you can keep your catch at Miami Lakes-Garcia. But remember how important catch-and-release fishing is during the spawn.

FS