Kings are found in 30 to 80 feet of water off both Sebastian and Fort Pierce inlets.

I first discovered Fort Pierce Inlet by accident. I ran out St. Lucie Inlet on a morning when I shouldn’t have gone, with a flag-snapper blowing out of the northeast, and the inlet rolly but not out of control on an incoming tide. When I came back, the full-moon outgoing tide was standing 8-foot seas on their ends as it met the incoming wind. The winding channel and rocky bars made the place a boater’s bad dream, and several 40-footers simply backed off and hove to, waiting for the current to slow.

In a 22-foot open boat, the idea wasn’t appealing, especially considering that

one of the crew-persons was getting distinctly green around the gills—and, to tell the truth, I was getting just a bit chartreuse myself. A quick check of the chart told me that there was a reason-able option—Fort Pierce, a deep, straight, fully jettied inlet, was just 20 miles up the coast. And, heck, we might see something to fish for on the way—so we went.

It wasn’t a fun ride, but Fort Pierce was a pussycat compared to St. Lucie, rolling but not breaking. And once on the inside, we discovered that the flats and channels of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) offer a lot to like about this area. It was the first of many visits to follow.

The town of Fort Pierce around U.S. 1 is sort of the industrial stepsister of Stuart, and nearby Sebastian is the sleepy country cousin of both. Punch around the waterfront in both towns, though, and you find some neat historical buildings, antique shops and groggeries well worth visiting—and waterfront motels where you can stay without floating a second mortgage. Both areas have been passed over by the tourist hordes so far, to the good fortune of the locals and the misfortune of the realtors, but if word of the fishing gets out, that could soon come to an end.

The inshore waters have a unique attraction for the east coast; here for the first time north of Miami, the flats begin to spread their wings, offering the trout, reds and snook some real habitat other than seawalls, docks and bridge pilings. The Indian River is one to two miles wide over much of this stretch, and all of that width except the dredged Intracoastal is covered with turtlegrass, oyster shell or clam bars.

The length of the ICW between the two inlets is dotted with spoil bars, and these attract finger mullet and other baitfish, which in turn attract the big Indian River-strain seatrout that once made the area famous. Thanks to tight harvest rules and the end to gill netting, the big trout are making a comeback, and on any morning you may connect with a 5-pound-and-up yellowmouth. The days of the frequent 10-pounders have not returned yet, but if the fishery regulators hold their course, that time is only two to three years away. As it is, the area holds five of the current line-class records for the species, including the all-tackle, 17-pound, 7-ounce monster caught by Craig Carson in May of 1995.

Local pros say the best tactic for the big trout is to get out of the boat at least a hundred yards from the bars, wade into maximum casting range, and deliver a big topwater like the Spook, Top Dog or SP5 Bang-O-Lure to the shallows. The D.O.A. Baitbuster, a soft plastic that’s a good imitation of the baby mullet, also works well. For those who can throw a long line, this is also flyfishing country, with big mullet-like streamers the ticket. This is a dawn bite, usually, but with an overcast they may bite later, and if there’s a slow drizzle you might be in fish all day long.

You’ll sometimes find snook mixed with the trout on the spoil islands, but they’re more common under the residential docks on rising water and in the boat cuts and basins on low. Check out the holes at Faber Cove on the south side of the inlet, and at Tucker Cove, Jim Island and Fort Pierce Cut on the north side, particularly in chilly weather.

The best areas for snook, though, are the inlets themselves, May through September, and both produce lunkers in excess of 30 pounds each year. In fact, catching a fish under the new 34-inch maximum can be a problem at times, if the season’s open and you’re looking for one to eat.

A favorite tactic is to drift a jumbo shrimp or a sardine (also known as pilchard locally) deep on incoming tides; you may hook up with a tarpon as well as a big snook. In calm weather on clear incoming tides, you can sometimes spot schools of snook stacked up along the jetties; a freelined sardine means a sure bite on these pods. After sundown, 1⁄2- to 1-ounce bucktails do a lot of business as do big crankbaits like the Bomber Long A and the MirrOlure 102, tossed far upcurrent and cranked back down.

The last hurrah for snooking is the mullet migration, usually around the strong moon periods in late October or early November, which turns on snook both in the inlets and along the beaches.

You don’t necessarily need a boat. At Sebastian, there’s good fishing off the north jetty and off the catwalks under the A1A bridge, for those who don’t have boats, as well as from the bridge over the Sebastian River, on the mainland side. Jetty action is also excellent at Fort Pierce, though there’s no bridge over that inlet.