Florida Sportsman Fishing & Boat Show Seminars feature the best local experts and industry pros.

Seminars begin at 11am and run all day long, both Saturday and Sunday, at separate inshore and offshore stages. Each following seminar will also begin at the top of the hour. Plan on grabbing your seat early, the best seats go fast.

Inshore Stage

11 a.m., Wadefishing the Flats Mark Nichols, inventor and manufacturer of D. O. A. lures, has tested his lures in shallow water all over the country, and the techniques he uses in the Indian River of Florida, Texas bays and Louisiana coastal islands will work just as well in Southwest Florida. “Keeping a low profile is essential in skinny water,” explains Nichols, “and I can’t do that from the bow of a boat. I’ll get out and go down on my knees on a submerged sandbar when I see a fish, which might put the water around my chest.” Nichols will demonstrate lure retrieval technique while wading in the inshore pond, casting to a display of virtual reality snook and redfish swimming in the roots of artificial mangrove plants.

Noon, Top Ten Ways to Catch More Fish Capt. Paul Hobby has spent thousands of hours fishing clients with artificials and fly in Pine Island Sound and has been featured in several Florida Sportsman articles, including “Night Moves on Snook” and “Just Skip It!” Capt. Hobby says there are plenty of fish to be found in winter if you learn his top ten ways to catch more fish. Here’s the list but not in any order so you will have to attend this seminar to find out which is Capt. Paul’s number one tip for catching more fish: Sharpen hooks; braided vs. mono; wearing polarized glasses; reading the water; type of lures for different conditions; boat handling; lure retrieval methods; fly fishing tips; wadefishing tips; and how fish respond to noise.

1 p.m., Inshore Grand Slam: Snook, Trout and Redfish Capt. Blair Wiggins, a Cocoa Beach native and professional charter captain, is host of Fox Sports Network’s Addictive Fishing. Known as the Mogan Man to his many fans, he won the 2006 FLW Redfish series and a $100,000 payout by traveling the pro circuit 300 days a year. But Wiggins recently gave up professional tournament fishing to become the Director of the IMG Sports Academy Professional Fishing School in Bradenton because, “I love to teach fishing almost as much as I love to go fishing--now I have the best of both worlds.“ As a redfish pro Wiggins frequently had to cull through trout and snook to get to the winning redfish. “I catch a slam by accident almost every time I go fishing for redfish in south Florida,” says Wiggins. “All three species frequent many of the same feeding stations, so I thought my seminar should be on how to purposely go after the three most popular inshore fish. Each tide flow--and even a still high or low--presents opportunities to catch quality fish if you know where these feeding stations are. My best advice is to work them all--grassflats, oyster bars, mangrove shorelines, cuts, channels and points.” Topics will also include capturing and keeping alive natural baits, tackle selection and end with a session on Wiggins’ top three lures for each species.

2 p.m., Sportsman’s Best: Redfish Capt. Terry Lacoss is a Florida Sportsman Contributing Editor, author of numerous feature articles and Sportsman’s Seminars columns, and author of Sportsman‘s Best: Redfish. Lacoss runs the charter fleet out of Amelia Island Plantation and frequently guides charters into the picturesque backwaters of the Amelia and St. Mary’s rivers near the Georgia border. He also fishes lots of redfish tournaments and won the very first ESPN redfish cup in 2002 and the Jacksonville IFA Cabela’s Redfish Tournament in 2003. Lacoss will give advice on how to work the tides to follow the schools of redfish while they move from the deep channels at low tide, to the potholes at incoming tide, to oyster bars, and then eventually up into the tidal creeks at high tide. “You have to follow the fish with the tides,” advises Lacoss. “This is true for species other than redfish, too. I see too many fishermen park in one spot for way too long. These fish don’t move far, but the key is to move with them as they feed on shrimp, mullet and crabs around dock pilings, and eventually residential creeks and canals at high tide.” Topics will also include Lacoss’ top ten artificial baits.

3 p.m., Tactics For Spooky Fish: Catching shallow-water gamefish during low-tide conditions in crystal clear water, or in areas of heavy fishing pressure, can be a very tough task. Capt. Alex Suescun, professional redfish tournament angler and the host of the popular TV show, Tarpon Bay Tales, will provide the answers to help anglers hook up with spooky fish. “Snook are wary by nature,” says Capt. Alex, “and even redfish, seatrout, and tarpon can get nervous and turn finicky when water and weather conditions or heavy boat traffic make them feel threatened. I’ll cover a number of important topics, including how to locate all the popular species, the top baits and lures, the best-suited tackle, proper boat-positioning, and specific techniques to get those fish to bite in a variety of circumstances.”

4 p.m., Planning Trips around Moon Phases and Tidal Flows Native Floridian Capt. Ray Markham is Florida Sportsman’s West Central Field Editor, co-host of Florida Sportsman Live radio and the Inshore Riggin‘ it Right team leader at all Florida Sportsman Fishing and Boat Shows. Markham is a firm believer in using tidal flows to locate and catch more fish, so this seminar will be all about how tides and moon phases affect feeding and migration habits of the huge variety of sportfish that swim in southwest Florida waters. “I’ll reveal the secrets of planning successful fishing trips using the Florida Sportsman Fishing Planner,” says Markham. “This interactive seminar will be species and location specific, and I encourage everyone to bring your questions to the table as a participant to understand where, when, and how tides in Southwest Florida affect fishing. Weather has a big affect on tides, so understanding how weather interacts with the tides will give you a better shot at catching more fish.”

Offshore Stage

11 a.m. Sportsman’s Best: Offshore Fishing Capt. Buck Hall is the author of Sportsman’s Best: Offshore Fishing and the Panhandle Field Editor for Florida Sportsman magazine. Buck spends an average of 60-80 days a year offshore with some of the best charter and tournament captains in the business of putting people on fish. Offshore Fishing is compiled from trips and interviews with more than 20 professional and tournament-winning captains so this seminar has something for everyone, novice to pro. Buck took plenty of notes and will share them with you in this informative and interactive seminar. Topics are right out of the pages of his book and include offshore strategies for Florida‘s huge variety of offshore sportfish and table fish, reading the water, lure selection and best natural baits.

Noon, Advanced Bottom Fishing Capt. Ralph Allen is Florida Sportsman’s Southwest Regional Field Editor and the second generation of charter captains to run the charter fleet out of Fisherman’s Village Marina. Capt. Allen says successful bottom fishing is like real estate--location, location, location--and will discuss how to catch more fish using electronics to find hard bottom in the Gulf. “A lot of people don’t know how to fine tune and interpret depthsounders to locate fish,” says Capt. Allen. “When you use them in conjunction with GPS you can find those little oases in the desert that are overlooked by others. Electronics keep getting more and more accurate, and much cheaper. These advances have made it a lot easier to locate good bottom. If you know how to use this stuff you’ll have a successful day.”

1 p.m., More Fish with Less Time and Money Capt. Hank Williams is the owner of Wet Willy Charters and has fished local waters for more than 30 years, learning ways to spend less time and money to catch more fish. Hank has developed dozens of nifty tips that will produce better catches of snapper, grouper, cobia, kingfish and all the offshore fish that swim Gulf Coast waters. This seminar will be all about maximizing your catch while minimizing your effort and expense. “If you learn to be a better fisherman you will save money on fuel and tackle,” advises Capt. Hank. “Boating has become more time-consuming and expensive over the years so you need to learn every little trick rather than the same old tactics that aren’t working. The change in water quality--especially red tide--has caused all of us to start to think beyond the basics and old tactics. It’s not more money or more time that will improve your catch, it’s smarter fishing, pure and simple.

2 p.m., Nearshore Trolling For Grouper Capt. John Bunch is a full-time charter captain and better known to his TV, print and radio fans as Capt. Giddyup. Bunch is co-host of Fox TV's Light Tackle Angler and an outdoor writer for the Naples Daily News. He has developed “nearshore” trolling with big-lipped lures to a science, catching grouper in six feet of water around mangroves and big breeding snook over reefs several miles offshore. “Because of the hurricanes, there are now lots of reefs that never existed before,” says Bunch. “So now is the time to be using these techniques. Trolling these plugs around acts like a fishfinder--when the rod goes off I immediately hit my man overboard button and that puts icons on the screen that develops into patterns. Those patterns indicate where the new reefs are.” Bunch says that the key to success is managing the depth of these mega lures and does that by using different types of line to tweak the depth by just a single foot. Topics will include Bunch’s top-ten favorite lures and how to rig them, boatmanship, how to “read” bait schools to troll your lures in the proper direction and depth, and how to troll around crab traps for tripletail and cobia.

3 p.m., Secrets of a Kingfish Champion Capt. Ozzie Fischer is a second-generation Florida charter skipper, growing up in Captiva and mating on his dad Doug Fischer‘s boat. He recently won the Hogsbreath for Kingfish and the FLW Pro Kingfish Tour--his biggest fish was caught in the Keys, a 62-pounder. Fischer runs a 32-foot Century center console out of South Seas Resort in Captiva. And when the water warms to 68 degrees--usually around mid March-- he starts looking for bait pods getting crashed from beneath by blue runners and mackerel. “You can be sure kingfish are in there too, but feeding just as much on the predators as the bait,“ says Capt. Ozzie. “The best advice I can give is to fish around structure like the Air Force Towers and the Edison reef. Find any structure or bottom that holds bait and you will find kings.” Capt. Ozzie also advises anyone who doesn’t want to go through the trouble of catching and rigging live baits to pull a silver spoon behind a planer. Topics will include how to find fish, boatmanship, tackle selection and bait rigging. The seminar will end with Capt. Ozzie appearing at the Offshore Riggin’ it Right Academy to show seminar attendees how to rig a simple kingfish bait.

4 p.m, Snapper and Grouper Capt. Rick Ryals is co-author of Florida Sportsman’s book and DVD, Sportsman’s Best: Snapper and Grouper, and team leader of Riggin’ it Right at all Florida Sportsman Fishing Shows. Ryals is also the captain of a new 35’ Cabo Express, Dos Amigos, that fishes Florida waters in search of big snapper and grouper. Ryals has won many tournaments over his 30 years of Florida fishing and will speak about how to greatly improve your catch of the most sought after reef and wreck fish, snapper and grouper. Using video clips and photos from Sportsman’s Best, Ryals will explain how to rig terminal tackle, best baits, how to catch and store live bait, anchoring and drifting techniques, and end with someone in the audience winning an autographed copy of Sportsman’s Best: Snapper and Grouper.

Offshore Riggin’ it Right Academy

11 a.m., How to tie a thirty second kingfish rig
Noon, Better bottom fishing
1:30 p.m., How to wire a swimming ballyhoo rig
2:30 p.m., How to keep, prepare and filet your catch
3:30 p.m., Back by popular demand, Better Bottom Fishing

Inshore Riggin’ it Right Academy

11 a.m., Artificials: Soft plastic, hard bodies and jigs
12:30 p.m., Effective Live and dead bait rigs: Shrimp to mud puppies
2 p.m., Make a splash! Popping corks, floats, rattles and beads
3 p.m., Uni-Knot System as a one-for-all knot
4 p.m., Your chance to ask the pros: Problem solving with one-on-one teaching

Angler on Foot

10:45 a.m., Beach fishing in Southwest Florida AND east coast Florida
Noon, Effective bridge and pier fishing
1:30 p.m., Locks, spillways and canal banks
3 p.m., Beach fishing in Southwest Florida AND east coast Florida
4 p.m., Effective bridge and pier fishing
4:45 p.m., Request hour

Kayak Fishing Seminar and slide show

Noon and 2 p.m. by Florida Sportsman Associate Editor Jerry McBride. Or stop in anytime and see the tricked-out boats and talk to the experts about how to fish from kayaks.