One pot wonders for all to enjoy.

Bouillabiasse – made delicious with your own Florida seafood catch.

What’s the difference between seafood soup, seafood chowder and seafood stew? Not sure, eh? Well, neither was I, especially since the overlapping and ambiguous dictionary definitions didn’t clarify anything. In desperation I finally had to concoct my own definitions, as follows:

SOUP—Pick up your spoon for this one. The liquid is nearly clear, and any solid ingredients are usually
bite-size.

CHOWDER—Keep the spoon. This variation is made thick and hearty by additives such as milk, cream, potatoes,
flour, or tomato sauce. The seafood and other solids, such as potatoes, are generally mashed or finely chopped.

STEW—Here you’ll need both a spoon and a fork, because the seafoods are either whole (shrimp, clams or mussels) or in hefty chunks (finfish, squid or lobster tail). But here’s a twist: When several varieties of choice seafoods are crowded into the same pot and served in upscale restaurants, the dish isn’t called stew at all but some hoity-toity European name like bouillabaisse or cioppino.

Regardless, they are nothing more than fancy seafood stews. Either variety makes an elegant one-pot meal for special guests. Of course there are about as many variations of these famous stews as there are cooks who make them and seafoods that grace them, so feel free to substitute according to your own tastes and budget. FS

BOUILLABAISSE

2 pounds fish fillets
1 doz. large shrimp, peeled and veined (catch them yourself, using the guidance featured in the September issue!)
1 doz. oysters
1 pound lobster meat
6 small scallops (or 12 bay scallops)
6 clams in shell
1⁄2 cup butter
1 large onion, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
2 cups fish stock or chicken broth
1 large ripe tomato, peeled
1 tsp. salt
1 lemon, sliced
¼ cup red wine

In a stockpot or Dutch oven, sauté the onion and garlic in the butter. Add fish and other seafood except clams and sauté about 5 minutes until seafood is cooked. Add stock, clams and other ingredients and simmer 5 more minutes. Serve by spooning portions of each seafood into bowls, then ladling liquid into each bowl. Float a lemon slice on top. Serves six.

Cioppino is another version of bouillabaisse. The Italian emphasis, heavy on tomato sauce, oregano and other spices and peppers, is readily apparent.

CIOPPINO

2 tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
2 carrots, thinly sliced
1⁄2 green or red pepper, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped, including leaves
1 tbsp. dry basil
¼ tsp. fennel seed
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. dry basil
1 tsp. dry oregano
1 cup chopped parsley
1 tsp. salt
¼ cup dry red wine
1 tbsp. wine vinegar
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
3 small cans tomato sauce
Your choice of seafoods

Sauté all ingredients except liquids until well blended and onion is soft. Add wine, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce and blend well. Add tomato sauce and simmer for 10 minutes or so.

To make cioppino, gather up your chosen selection of seafood from among one or more kinds of fish, plus some shrimp, mussels, clams, squid, lobster chunks, scallops or whatever. The fish should be a firm-fleshed type, such as amberjack, grouper or dolphin, cut in bite-size pieces. Boil the seafood in fish stock or chicken stock. Concoct each bowl of cioppino with one ladle of the heated base, another ladle of stock, and whatever seafood you choose, being sure to include both fish and shellfish.

Of course, you could also do it by simply mixing everything together in one big serving bowl, but ceremony would suffer.

FISH STEW DELUXE

2 tbsp. olive oil or butter
2 pounds boneless fresh fish
1 onion, sliced
1 cup white wine
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
1 large potato, diced
1⁄4 tsp. thyme
1 small carrot, thinly sliced
½ cup celery, chopped
1⁄4 cup chopped red pepper, if desired
salt and pepper
1 tsp. cornstarch
3⁄4 cup fish or chicken stock

Sauté onion in the oil or butter until clear. Add fish and sauté until done and lightly browned. Add wine and other ingredients. Cover and simmer about 15 minutes, or until vegetables are tender. Stir lightly to break up fish. Mix cornstarch thoroughly with cold stock. Add mixture to pot and boil until thickened. Serves six.

First Published Florida Sportsman Oct. 2011
By Vic Dunaway

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The recreational harvest season for one of Florida’s premier fish, snook, reopens March 1 in Florida’s Gulf of Mexico state and adjacent federal waters, including Everglades National Park and Monroe County. The season will remain open through April 30.

In the Gulf, anglers may keep one snook per day that is not less than 28 inches or more than 33 inches total length, which is measured from the most forward point of the head with the mouth closed to the farthest tip of the tail with the tail compressed or squeezed while the fish is lying on its side. A snook permit is required to keep snook, along with a saltwater fishing license unless exempt from the license requirements. Only hook-and-line gear is allowed when targeting or harvesting snook.

Anglers can report their catch on the Snook & Gamefish Foundation’s website at Snookfoundation.org by clicking on the “Angler Action Program” link in the bar at the top of the page.
It is illegal to buy or sell snook.

Snook are one of the many reasons Florida is the Fishing Capital of the World. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) encourages anglers to use moderation when determining whether or not to take a snook home during the open season. When choosing to release a fish, the FWC encourages anglers to handle it carefully to help the fish survive upon release. Proper handling methods can help ensure the species’ abundance for anglers today and generations to come. To learn more about fish handling, visit MyFWC.com/Fishing and click on “Saltwater Fishing,” “Recreational Regulations” and “Fish Handling.”

Researchers ask anglers who harvest the fish to save their filleted carcasses and provide them to the FWC by dropping them off at a participating bait and tackle store. For the county-by-county list, go to MyFWC.com/Research and click on “Saltwater,” then “Snook” (under “Saltwater Fish”) and “Snook Anglers Asked to Help with Research.”

These carcasses provide biological data, including the size, age, maturity and sex of the catch. This information is important to the FWC in completing stock assessments. If you see a snook fishery violation, call the Wildlife Alert Program at 888-404-FWCC (3922).

In Atlantic state and federal waters (including Lake Okeechobee and the Kissimmee River) the season is open through May 31, and one snook may be kept per person, per day. The size limit in Atlantic waters is no less than 28 inches total length and no more than 32 inches total length.

For more information, visit MyFWC.com/Fishing and click on “Saltwater Fishing,” “Recreational Regulations” and “Snook.”

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Legendary Brand launches new lures for the Florida salt A mouth full of the new Storm 360 GT Searchbait Series

Rapala lures is doubling down on research and development in saltwater lures, bringing brand new styles of hard baits, soft baits and jigs to the Florida market this year. We had a sneak peek at some of the new gear at the Florida Sportsman offices this week, and put the lures to the test on local waters. As always, the Rapala brand delivers quality baits at an affordable price that catch fish.

Rapala has a lot of tried-and-true snook baits, like the X-Rap and the Skitter Walk. Add a new one to the list, the soft bait Storm 360 GT Searchbait Series, which is brand new this year. This weekend Rhett Nelson of Florida Sportsman tested the 360 GT out on local waters near the St. Lucie Inlet and found it to be a snook killer.

“The bait was the brand new Rapala Storm 360 GT Coastal 4” Largo Shad in Silver Mullet. The rod was a medium light G. Loomis 7-foot, 6-inch popping rod with a 2500 series reel, 20-pound braid and 30-pound fluorocarbon.  We were fishing the CCA Inter Chapter challenge this Saturday out of Jensen Beach.  Fishing the Hole in the Wall area during the top half of the incoming tide. I had seen this particular school of fish the week prior on the same tide and hoped that they would be there again. 

“At 7:30 am I had my first cast on the spot and felt a bump but was unable to hook the fish.  Not knowing if I had hit structure, I reeled the bait in to inspect and sure enough had some serious line fray about 8 inches above the lure. I knew that was a big snook!  I cast back to the same spot and got thumped again.  This time I was actually able to hook the fish.  After what seemed like an eternity we were able to get the fish in the landing net and enter our catch on the iAngler app for the CCA tournament.  The fish ended up at 37 inches.”

Other new saltwater baits that got the teams’ attention were the Koika jigs and the brand new X-Rap Magnum 40.

The Rapala Williamson Koika jig is a speed jig that you can cast. It’s been available to anglers overseas for some time, and it’s now coming to America. The Koika is perfect for a wide range of surface feeding pelagics or you can let it sink toward structure and work it like a speed jig. Its fluttering fall and flashy surface and life-like eyes attract action. They’re available in a range of weights, from 3 ½ ounces up to 9 ounces and they’re pre-rigged with a single, heavy-duty VMC assist hook. Think tuna and dolphin on the surface and grouper, snapper and amberjack below. Casting these to surface-feeding fish would be a blast.

Rapala also has an addition to its popular X-Rap Magnum line. They’ve introduced the biggest X-Rap Magnum yet, the Magnum 40, with reactive colors to grab a fish’s attention, through-wired for durability and rigged with VMC treble hooks. This is a wahoo killer when trolled near the surface and a big grouper bait when trolled over shallower reefs. The summer wahoo moons are coming up and that’s just one instance when these Magnum 40s would come in handy.

There’s also a whole array of new tools from Rapala, including utility knives, precision cutters, ceramic knives, and magnetic-spring pliers. All these tools and lures are designed and tested for years before they’re released to the market, and now, finally, they’re available to Florida anglers.

The post Rapala’s New Inventions appeared first on Florida Sportsman.

Street-fight tactics for taking down the heavyweights.
Caught between a snook and a hard place, something’s gonna give. Hint: It’s not that concrete piling.

When you hook a big fish on a grassflat, you just let it run. When you hook a big fish under a dock or around pilings you can’t do that, unless you want to lose your expensive fly line as well as the fish.

It’s very sad when a fisherman loses a good fish to a dock and says, “There was nothing I could do!” Of course there was!

I’m a big fan of light tackle, but fishing around structure is not the place for it. Go sufficiently geared up rod-wise. Think of what you’d ordinarily use for the size fish you’re after and go up at least one rod size, or better yet, two.

The same holds true for your leader. Sharp-eyed snook require a tippet of no more than 20-pound-test fluorocarbon. But that’s plenty! Use a two-piece leader with a 30-pound butt and a 20-pound tippet, or even a straight piece of 20-pound right off the fly line.

Jeff Weakley, editor of this magazine, offers this interesting bit of advice: “My own take on this, having fished docks a lot for snook, is to use a hook light enough that it will straighten before the $120 flyline gets shredded over the pilings.”

Okay. You found a dock with fish. You presented your fly. A 15-pound behemoth takes it.

Most anglers are going to lift the rod and try to pull the fish out. After all, this is what we’ve been trained to do.

Sorry. Most of the time that won’t work here. Once that fish spreads its pectoral fins, water pressure is going to keep you from moving it.

What you need to do is to plunge the rodtip deep into the water and pull as hard as you dare. What you are trying to do is roll the fish over. If you can disorient the beast you might be able to pull it away from the structure before it recovers enough to get back in there.

Much better to open a light wire hook than to snap a $700 rod.

And the fish will recover and it will try to get back in there. Don’t let it. Lock up the line and dare that fish to make it back to the dock.

If the boat is not anchored, the boat man should help you by moving the boat away from the structure. Quickly.

Sometimes the fish will cut or break your leader or straighten the hook, or simply out-muscle you. Hey, you’re not going to win every time.

But, hopefully it’s obvious that if you let the fish do what it wants you’re going to lose almost every time.

It has happened to me with cobia on buoys that, after the hookup, we used gentle pressure to “walk” the fish away from the structure with the boat. Once we were far enough away that no surge would get the fish back there, then we came tight and started the battle. They were cooperative fish, though.

With tarpon around bridges you must follow it in and out of the pilings. You’re not going to out-muscle a green tarpon with any kind of tackle. Try to get it out into open water. Use these techniques and see if you don’t get more victories in your close quarters combat. FS

First published Florida Sportsman April 2015

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Gulf and Atlantic open season begins Sept. 1

The recreational open season for snook starts Sept. 1 statewide.

During the open season, the daily bag limit is one fish per person. In the Atlantic, snook must be not less than 28 inches and not more than 32 inches total length, which is measured from the most forward point of the head with the mouth closed to the farthest tip of the tail with the tail compressed or squeezed while the fish is lying on its side. In the Gulf, they must be not less than 28 inches and not more than 33 inches total length.

Snook are closed to harvest Dec. 1 through the end of February and May 1 through Aug. 31 in Gulf state and federal waters, including Monroe County and Everglades National Park. In Atlantic state and federal waters, including Lake Okeechobee and the Kissimmee River, snook are closed Dec. 15 through Jan. 31 and June 1 through Aug. 31.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) encourages anglers to use moderation when determining whether or not to take a snook home. When releasing a snook, proper handling methods can help ensure your fish’s survival and the species’ abundance for anglers today and generations to come. To learn more about catch-and-release and the best way to handle a fish, visit MyFWC.com/Fishing and click on “Saltwater Fishing,” then “Recreational Regulations” and “Fish Handling.”

A snook permit, as well as a recreational saltwater license, is required unless the angler is exempt from the recreational license requirements. Snook may be targeted or harvested with hook-and-line gear only. Snagging is prohibited.

Researchers ask anglers who harvest the fish to save their filleted carcasses and provide them to the FWC by dropping them off at a participating bait and tackle store. For the county-by-county list, go to MyFWC.com/Research and click on “Saltwater,” then “Snook” (under “Saltwater Fish”) and “Snook Anglers Asked to Help with Research.”

These carcasses provide biological data, including the size, age, maturity and sex of the catch. This information is important to the FWC in completing stock assessments. If you see a snook fishery violation, call the Wildlife Alert Program at 888-404-FWCC (3922).

Anglers can report their catch on the Snook & Gamefish Foundation’s website at SnookFoundation.org by clicking on the “Angler Action Program” link in the bar at the top of the page.

Game on!

Visit MyFWC.com/Fishing and click on “Saltwater Fishing” and “Recreational Regulations” for more information on snook.

The post Snook Season On! appeared first on Florida Sportsman.

A spicy snook recipe that’s sure to be a hit.

Before: The authors son, Matthew Benecke, caught this beauty off Anna Maria Island on a Yo-Zuri Crystal Minnow.

Snook season is now open in Florida. With all the rules and regulations on this species, catching a slot snook is a real treat. It cannot be bought at any restaurant or fish market, so it’s worth making something really special when you do catch a keeper. This recipe is great for a cozy night in with a glass of wine and a snuggie or for a formal dinner party. Whatever the occasion, this dish is sure to please the palate.

Pan Seared Snook with Jalapeno Cream Sauce and Seafood Risotto

Serves: 6
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour

Ingredients

Seafood Risotto
2 cups of Arborio rice
6-8 cups of chicken stock (kept warm)
3 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup onion (chopped)
1 tsp garlic (finely chopped)
1/2 cup of white wine
12oz jumbo shrimp (can use raw or cooked, cut into chunks)
2 cups of bay scallops (small)
1/4 cup whole kernel corn
1/4 cup leeks (rinsed and sliced)
1 tsp dried tarragon
2 Tbsp fresh chives (chopped)
1 small tomato (diced)
2 Tbsp butter salt and pepper (to taste)

Jalapeno Cream Sauce
4 jalapenos, cored and finely diced
1/4 cup red onion, finely chopped
2 Tbsp garlic, finely chopped
2 Tbsp butter
2 cups heavy whipping cream
2 tsp corn starch (mixed with a little water to make a paste for thickening)

Garnish
12 jumbo shrimp (grilled)
6 jalapenos (halved and grilled)
Lemon wedges
Chives

Snook
2 snook fillets, cut into 6 pieces
All purpose flour (just enough for a light dusting)
Light olive oil (enough to coat the bottom of your pan)
2 Tbsp butter
Salt
Ground black pepper
Fish spice of choice (optional)

After: This snook sure cleans up nicely.

Directions

Seafood Risotto
Add the oil to a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and sauté until tender. Add the Arborio rice and stir to coat the rice. Add the wine and cook until the wine has absorbed. Turn heat to medium-low. Add 1 to 2 ladles at a time of the warm chicken stock and stir constantly. Let simmer slowly until the liquid has absorbed. Keep adding 1 to 2 ladles at a time and keep stirring. Once you have used about 2/3 of the stock, add in the cut up shrimp, bay scallops, corn and leeks. Keep stirring and adding stock until the rice is creamy and tender. Add in the herbs and tomato and simmer until done. Add in the butter and season with salt and pepper to taste. Keep warm until ready to serve. Add a little warm stock if too thick before serving.

Jalapeno Cream Sauce
Core and remove the seeds from 4 jalapenos. Use 5 if you prefer a stronger jalapeno flavor. Add the butter to a medium sized saucepan over medium heat. Once melted add the onion, jalapeno and garlic. Sauté until the onion is translucent. Add the heavy whipping cream and let simmer on medium-low for about 5 minutes. Mix the cornstarch with a little water, just to make a paste and add this to the cream mixture. Whisk until incorporated and thickened. You can always add a little more cream if too thick. Using an emersion blender, blend the sauce until smooth. Season with a little salt and pepper (to taste). Let simmer for another 2 minutes. Keep warm until ready to serve.

Snook
Once your snook is cleaned and filleted, cut into six pieces and pat dry with paper towel. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Season with salt and pepper and lightly dust with flour. Place your pan over medium-high heat. Add the butter and oil. Once butter has melted and the oil is hot, add the snook and sear for two to three minutes on each side. You will need to do this in batches. Place the snook on a parchment lined baking dish and bake for about ten minutes, until cooked throughout. The cooking time will vary depending on thickness of the fillets. If a butter knife slides into the center of the fish with ease, it’s done. If there is some resistance, continue cooking time in two minute increments.

Plating
Place seafood risotto in the center of your plate. Top with a piece of snook. Garnish with two grilled shrimp, chives and lemon wedge. Drizzle sauce around the risotto and a little over the snook. Enjoy!!

Time saving tip: While the risotto is cooking, make the sauce and grill the shrimp. Cook the snook last, just before serving.

The post Pan Seared Snook and Seafood Risotto appeared first on Florida Sportsman.

Yes, you can use a Carolina rig outside the Carolinas. And the Jupiter rig? It’s at home anywhere in Florida.

Want to keep the bait on bottom while allowing a little slack for the bite? The Jupiter rig does just that. Pictured is finger mullet.

Everywhere I’ve traveled, I’ve seen— and used—different rigs for snook fishing, even from one inlet to the next. Part of that is because anglers tend to adopt a rigging system that has worked well in the past. But if you pay attention, you’ll see there are other reasons.

When fishing in Miami, we used the Carolina rig for snook. That’s one term for a rig in which an egg sinker slides from the monofilament line to a swivel, followed by a leader, and then the hook. This allows the bait to move away from the weight on the bottom when the reel is in freespool. The bait can go with the current up or sideways, and the predator won’t feel the presence of the weight. It’s a good and very popular rig.

A knocker rig is another free-sliding weight rig, but the sinker is allowed to slide all the way to the hook without a swivel. This rig is widely used in many places. With it, it’s especially easy to remove a hook that’s stuck in the bottom, by jerking the rod up and down. This causes the weight to bounce and de-hook the bottom.

Here in Jupiter, where I fish, we use the “Jupiter rig.” It consists of swivel-sinkerswivel, with the swivels separated by a few inches of 80-pound mono, and then about 2 feet of leader material tied to a circle hook. This rig keeps your bait near the bottom at all times. Sure, the predators feel the weight, but for some reason they don’t seem to really mind. I use the uni-knot, also called the Duncan loop, to attach all.

Because the line does not keep sliding through the sinker, it’s possible to make long, accurate casts with this rig.

The first swivel, preventing the sinker from sliding all the way up the line, keeps the sinker with the rig during the cast. That’s important, as the fish are often holding in particular spots that may or may not afford optimal boat positioning. Also, in strong current, the Jupiter rig allows you to keep contact with the bait while the rig bumps along the bottom. With the Carolina or knocker rig, the current may carry the bait far from the sinker—minimizing your ability to sense a bite, and risking entanglement with unseen structure.

The snook, I tell my clients, are like vacuum cleaners always on the ground or bottom in this case. Tarpon can be the same way. Thus, we want our baits close to the bottom. A 2-foot leader is maximum, the two swivels on each side of the sinker keep the bait down.

When targeting snook and other hard-mouthed predators, using the right size and style hook makes a difference. For the Jupiter rig, I like Daiichi’s D85Z 5/0 offset, light-wire circle hooks when using pinfish, croakers or mullet for bait. These hooks, and others like them, are different than conventional J-style hooks where setting the hook is a must. Using circle hooks, setting the hook is performed differently. When a fish picks up the bait, you wind your reel until the line becomes tight, then slowly raise the rod to set the hook. In my opinion, the hookup-to-catch ratio is much higher when using circle hooks compared to J-hooks. Also, the fish are almost always hooked in the corner of the mouth, with virtually no deep- or gut-hooked fish, which can happen with J-hooks. Fish hooked in the corner of the mouth are easier to unhook and revive.

Using the right size hook for the bait is important too, so match smaller hooks to smaller baits. I hook my baits in the upper jaw only when using certain rigs, and especially circle hooks.

Leader material is another important factor in consistently catching fish. I use fluorocarbon leader, mono leader and mainline monofilament. The reason I use fluorocarbon sometimes, and mono sometimes, is because fish will bite mono, and it’s less costly. If they won’t bite with 60-pound mono (what I often start with), I scale down to 50-pound mono, 40-pound mono, then 30-pound mono. At which point I switch to 50-pound fluorocarbon since its properties make it virtually invisible in the water and more abrasion resistant than mono. But again, fluoro is quite a bit more expensive.

There are many brands of fluorocarbon on the market; I like the Trik Fish fluoro, which comes in handy 100-yard wrist spools which I place on my leaning post rod holders for easy identification and access. I place them from lightest on the right to heaviest on the left. Saves time when the bite is on! FS

First Published Florida Sportsman Magazine May 2013

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From the Florida Keys to your home flats, universal lessons on sight-fishing shallow water.

A single bonefish “floats,” with tail and dorsal exposed.

On the edge of the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Everglades is a tiny, less than 2-acre grassy knoll. This spot fills up with some of the biggest redfish in the area when the first fall cold front passes through South Florida. I stumbled upon the site in the 1980s, running by and blowing up fish. They were large enough to be small tarpon, which I thought they were, when I stopped, but on closer inspection I was surprised by their true identity and size.

I privately held it as one of my very own top secret spots. Some years later, I drove by it with Al Pflueger, Jr., on board. Pflueger, always graciously willing to share his vast knowledge, pointed to the flat and described everything I’d learned about that obscure bank, and much, much more. I thought I’d invented the wheel, but Pflueger (scion of the famous Miami taxidermy house and a light tackle expert) had been routinely catching trophy fish there since the 1960s.

Odds are you’ve been surprised by redfish, too. Despite popular conceptions, these fish don’t just swim around waving bronzed tails like flags for us to see. Unless they are squeaking across mere inches of water, reds can be downright subtle.

Fish a spot with the dedication of a guy like Pflueger, and you’ll recognize nuances unique to that location. You’ll see patterns in gamefish behavior according to seasons, tides and weather conditions.

Close dark shapes in foreground are sponges and clumps of weed. Farther back is school of bonefish. Scanning the water and knowing what to dismiss and what to focus on, is a big step toward becoming a successful flats fisherman.

But regardless of your experience level, there’s one thing you can do—right now—to improve your sightfishing success: Discipline your eye to look for your target first, then at it once the bullseye is locked.

Whether hunting for redfish, tarpon, permit or some other gamefish, a trained, experienced eye scans and unconsciously dismisses peripheral distractions, then tightly focuses on something encouraging, the desired target.

As for redfish, they are among the most wide-ranging and popular saltwater gamefish in the southeastern U.S.

It’s a fact that most fertile redfish flats, especially in South Florida, are peppered with almost non-stop mullet activity. Experienced anglers know that the flashing, splashing and perpetually moving mullet leave a far different footprint than the slower, more deliberate reds.

Sometimes a brief glance at a sliver of the darker, broom-like tail is the only confirmation of the presence of a stationary red. “Waking” redfish are on the move, and they’ll generally push a larger wave than mullet, and when mullet give way to this hump, it’s yet another sure indication of a carnivore.

Another fish found in many of the same areas is the black drum. The drum’s lighter colored, exposed rear end and sometimes vertical striping sets him apart from the red. Tailing drum are a common sight in some areas. They aren’t as quick to pounce on a fly or jig—nor are they quite as strong as a redfish—but they are an interesting target, for some anglers.

Both of these tasty fish make “muds” when they’re digging up crabs, shrimp or other organisms. The signature of this activity might be confused with the activity of mullet, but reds and drum usually leave slightly larger, denser balls of dissipating “smoke” than the mullet.

A fine redfish from Florida Bay.

Bonefish share some of the traits of redfish, but leave their own unique calling cards. In the Florida Keys, calm waters early and late in the day will reveal the most tailing bonefish. Waving and glistening fins are obvious. Tiny, quickly disappearing ringlets every 10 or 15 feet can mean a pack of bonefish barely tipping up and advancing.

While easy to see on the glassy surface, these slick water silver bullets are much more difficult to fool than reds or other neighbors. Judging from the frequent reactions of these wary fish, even a small shrimp, crab or jig entering the water must appear to them like a truck plunging off a Keys bridge. A flyline might roll out like a bowling ball coming down the alley.

Asked about their favorite conditions for stalking these wary fish, veteran anglers in the Keys will commonly say they prefer wind, and lots of it. A large percentage of the true giants, double digit “slobs” as they are locally called, have been taken during nearly prohibitive periods of weather. These big torpedoes temporarily let down their guard.

From author Mark Krowka’s Florida Keys files: A windy weather bonefish.

But just how do you see them in all the wind? Many mudding bonefish are taken in 2 to 4 feet (even more, sometimes) of water, in depths where their presence would never begin to affect the surface. Both wind and tide move water. A stiff breeze and current can elongate muds into obvious, discolored stripes on even the darkest grassy bottoms. Even if the bodies aren’t apparent, you can make an educated guess as to their location, slightly upcurrent or sometimes crosscurrent of the developing dirty pattern. Sometimes, it’s just as simple as connecting the milky dots.

Headwaking schools of bonefish en route to a postdawn area of deeper water are visible to the observant eye, also. Guides call this “nervous” or “funny” water, and normally it has a very specific direction. It’s easy to spot when it’s calm, and in wind appears as a rumble against the lay of the grain. Maybe it should be called “different” water.

Depending upon speed, of course, the shot should always be in front of the center of the school, rolling one in the sweet pocket. This cast gets the most eyes on what you’re tossing. More importantly in the case of larger, smarter bones, this placement keeps the formation and direction forward and naturally competitive. A wide shot off of a corner can break the pattern and suspiciously disrupt normal swimming direction.

This angler is paying careful attention to how a fish is reacting to his retrieve.

It’s even possible to sightcast to fish that you can’t see. During a past Redbone Celebrity Tournament, off Elliott Key, on an overcast, chilly and wintry November day, frontal winds blew at over 20 mph. Large masses of northbound bonefish were showing up, and blowing up a few yards off our bow. Scott Deal and I were frustrated that we couldn’t see these golden opportunities in time to cast. More carefully observing, we noticed ballyhoo skipping out of the way every 5 minutes or so, and coming in our direction a few hundred feet down the island. Then more baitfish would tailwalk in increasingly closer increments. Deal, a boatbuilder and pilot, cast blindly using only his internal instruments and took several bonefish that we never actually saw. These bones helped him eventually win that tournament. He estimated speed, yardage, and used the only available signs, the terrified ballyhoo. In other words, he guessed!

Permit will do many bonefish-like things. They will mud, usually with less frequency than bonefish. A 30-pound-plus silvery disc on the dig can drift out quite an impressive plume indeed. A tailing permit in the shallows is hard to miss with its elongated black paddle and curved dorsal fin. But most permit caught sightfishing are sub-surface and not tailing. Unlike bonefish, permit will occasionally “spike up” in channels, deeper basins and over wrecks and other structures, both manmade and natural. Blacktips, underwater flashing and sparkling glints of sunlight off shiny fins and backs will give these white lippers away.

Look for generally darker shapes in 2 or more feet of water swimming, mudding alone or in groups. Sometimes permit will be parked and waiting where a flat drops off or comes to a point. Again, not visibly bothering the water.

Al Pflueger, Jr., with one of the trickiest sight-fishing targets, a shallow-water permit.

Yet another way of finding permit whenever poling around a channel, eddy, or tide rip, is to keep an ear open. You might hear one! A permit kissing a crab or shrimp out of a glob of floating weed is one of the most spine-tingling audibles in all of fishing. It’s a unique noise that is not guttural like a snook or tarpon, but very much like the sound of a giant lit cigar being put out in a shot glass.

Thank goodness for the tarpon, making heroes out of us all. These big animals pop, gurgle, free-jump and roll. Nothing very sophisticated to look for, most of the time. But all that glitters might not always be silver. Many times, the more cavorting the silver king, the more they are shut off. Techniques of locating tarpon have filled countless books. When they are not rolling, even the biggest rockets can be surprisingly covert. Even 6-foot, laidup logs can go virtually undetected on days of marginal visibility. Light bottom may expose tarpon, but it is widely agreed upon that finding them there makes them much tougher to deceive.

Successful tarpon fly fishermen purposely look for an “event.” They strategically pick an area of busier water. There’s no question that a lee with white sand will afford great sighting. However, a recipe of current, sketchy bottom and tainted water will assist in great biting. Tarpon will sometimes appear only as a slight discoloration, moving at a different rate than surface or subsurface weeds.

Migrating tarpon can cut an impressive headwake into all waters, calm or choppy. In almost every case they are moving faster than their posture would appear. You just wouldn’t think a school of 100-pound fish would be tough to pick out. They can be upon you and aware in just seconds.

In the words of the late, great, legendary pioneer Capt. Jimmy Albright, “If you can see it, you can certainly catch it!” SWA

First Published in Florida Sportsman’s Shallow Water Angler Magazine May 2014

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Fish your soft-plastic shrimp the way the fish want it

Writer with overslot snook caught on a 4-inch, 1/4-ounce Storm 360GT Shrimp. He was casting and reeling across-tide near docks.

Shrimp: small in size, but a giant player in estuaries throughout Florida. Everything eats shrimp, and they’ve proven time and time again to be one of the best baits inshore. Lure manufacturers have been making soft-plastic shrimp imitations for decades, in different shapes, sizes and colors. Some of them come rigged on a jighead, some on a weedless hook, some un-rigged. There are many different ways these can be fished. Here are some tactics for common scenarios that will help you catch more fish.

In the Rough

Redfish love to get up in seagrass flats, burying their heads into the thick of it, hunting for shrimp and other crustaceans. This sets the stage for some excellent sight-fishing, but a bait with an exposed hook is practically unfishable in this situation. Using the soft-plastic to your advantage, by burying a weedless hook into the bait, allows you to cast into the thicket and present your lure without fouling and blowing your shot. A slow “drag” of the bait across the nose of the fish, as if the shrimp was crawling along the bottom, will buy a bite.

On the Drift

Hard outgoing tides have a flushing effect on estuaries, sweeping shrimp out of the backwater with the tide. Fish know this, and will stage around choke points and areas of heavy current flow, like bridges and inlets, waiting to pick these tasty morsels off the surface, especially at night. When you find the fish popping the surface, cast a weightless or lightly-weighted shrimp up-current and let the tide do the work, keeping just enough tension on your line to feel a bite. More times than not, a fish will pick it up as it drifts with the current. A small twitch of the rod tip every so often wouldn’t hurt, either.

A slow glide to the bottom, followed by a quick upward snap, is a good technique.

Taking the Slow Ride

You’re marking a congregation of seatrout in a depression, the water is cold and the fish are lethargic. What do you throw? A slow-moving shrimp is a tough contestant to beat. Lethargic fish slow their metabolism and don’t want to waste any of their energy chasing down a meal, so why not bring the food to them?

This is one of my favorite tactics for seatrout in the winter time. Staging on the outside of a pothole, dropoff or depression in a flat, I like to make a long cast past the area where the fish are holding. Allowing my lure to sink all the way to bottom, I will then drag the lure very slowly along the bottom, with the occasional twitch of the rod tip. When the lure is dragging the bottom, it will make small puffs of sand on the bottom, like a shrimp on the move. This makes it easier for a fish to find and key in on the bait. FS

First Published Florida Sportsman Magazine October 2017

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Backcountry Fly Championship Series: 2017 Hurricane Cup Tournament results

Lisa Everett and Gail Kennedy holding up one of their many snook.

Hurricane Irma hit the Florida Keys hard, destroying homes and businesses, but it did not break the spirit of the community. As they have come to use a term #keysstrong, the community came together to help their neighbors, friends and even strangers in worse hit communities. Many Keys residents, including fishing guides went down to the lower Keys to help feed others while assisting them in the clean up of their properties, this is what the Florida Keys is all about, helping others in their time of need.

This time of year, Captain Paul Tejera from Islamorada puts together a tournament called The Backcountry Fly Championship Series; which is a 2-day, catch and release, fly only tournament where anglers target redfish and snook and are only able to count their two biggest fish caught for each species. Anglers are able to continue upgrading their catch in hopes of accumulating as many inches as possible. The series is held in the spring on the last Friday and Saturday in February and again in the fall in October. The anglers and guides that fish both the spring and the fall tournaments compete towards the coveted title for the “King of the Backcountry” which is a perpetual trophy where the winner’s name and the Captain’s name is etched on and displayed at Sandy Moret’s Florida Keys Outfitters in Islamorada.

When Hurricane Irma hit in early September affecting many hotels and restaurants, Tejera made a call to cancel the tournament, much to the dismay of many of the guides who really could use the business since many of their trips were cancelled due to the effects of the storm. Anglers were also upset and still wanted the tournament to go on. With there being so much need for the guides, Tejera thought of putting together a fun format for fishing, finding sponsors and all funds collected donated to the Guides Trust Foundation. The response was amazing not just from the anglers signing up but also from sponsors that wanted to help.

The one-day tournament, called the Hurricane Cup, was an open format where anglers could fish from anywhere in the Keys, from Flamingo Marina to Key West. Target species were tarpon, bonefish, permit, redfish and snook of any size and at the end of the day anglers could check in at the Lorelei Restaurant in Islamorada or they could text in their score sheet to the scorekeeper. 36 boats competed in the tournament, releasing 694 fish, 644 of which were snook. Hurricane Irma did not affect the fishing and these numbers are proof that the fishing in the Keys and Flamingo is still great!

Top Guided Team: Lisa Everett, Capt. Larry Sydnor, and Gail Kennedy McManus

The winning team consisted of two female anglers, one being an Islamorada resident, Gail Kennedy McManus fishing with her North Carolina and International Women’s Fishing Association friend, Lisa Everett. The duo caught and released 255 snook amassing a score of 6575 points, which put them above all other teams to take home the Top Guided Team, Most Snook Releases, Top Spin Team and Top Female Angler to Lisa for her 150 snook. Amazing fishing by these two anglers and their Islamorada guide, Capt. Larry Sydnor.

Top Unguided Team went to Islamorada residents Kyle Velunza and Karina Kempter who fished with their friend, Nelson Padron from Miami. They released between the two anglers, 95 snook on fly and spin tackle totaling 2575 points.

Top Unguided Team: Kyle Velunza, Nelson Padron, and Karina Kempter

Most Tarpon Releases – Jayce Chamizo from Islamorada and Lincoln Rodriguez from Miami they also received the Most Permit Releases with 1 permit.

Most Bonefish and Top Junior Angler went to Konnor Ross and Capt. Randy Towe from Islamorada

Most Redfish Releases – Capt. Mike Hutchisson and brother Greg Hutchisson from Miami Springs

Fly Division Champion and Most Species Award – Jeff Harkavy from Coral Springs and Capt. Steve Thomas from Islamorada.

Releases – Break Down

644 snook

34 tarpon

13 redfish

1 permit

2 bonefish

The post 2017 Hurricane Cup Tournament Results appeared first on Florida Sportsman.

A stealth approach gives the angler an opportunity to land his fly right into this school of hungry redfish.

Sight fishing can be one of the most adrenaline filled activities on the water, when done right. Not many things compare to making the perfect cast at a fish, and watching it all come together as your lure or fly disappears into the fish’s gullet. Thus said, this can be a daunting task, with as little as being six-inches off of the intended target ruining your opportunity. Here are five tips to help you improve your sight fishing game.

1. Good Glasses

What is the number one item needed for sight fishing? Glasses! If you can’t see the fish, you might as well head back to the house. A good pair of polarized sunglasses cuts down glare on the water’s surface, allowing you to see into the water. A quality pair of glasses also reduce fatigue on your eyes, for those long days on the water. Many companies, such as Costa Del Mar, have multiple lens options, allowing you choose the right pair (or pairs) for the job. I prefer to have a pair that offers high contrast, and a pair for low light conditions, incase the clouds roll in. Note: pair up your glasses with a dark under-brim hat, reducing glare, giving you better contrast and visibility into the water.

A long and calculated cast fooled this Bahamas bonefish into eating a shrimp fly.

2. Stealth

Fish have heightened senses in shallow water, using their lateral line and eye sight to watch for potential predators. That means excessive noise and vibration from the boat can clear out a flat full of fish in seconds. Avoid stomping around the deck, giving off pressure wakes that fish can feel. Poling is the best form of stealth in shallow water. If using a trolling motor, try to keep it on a slow, constant setting. The changing in speed can be felt throughout the lateral line and spook out fish.

3. Weather and Timing

Something you should do before any and every fishing trip should be to check the weather. This is very important when it comes to sight fishing though. The main ingredient in the sight fishing recipe is sun, without it, seeing fish can be nearly impossible. It’s good to have a back up fishing plan on cloudy days.

One of my favorite things about sight fishing is that you can sleep in! No need to be up before the rooster crows, like I said before, sun is a necessity for sight fishing, the mid-day high sun is typically your best time. Go get breakfast, let the busy boat ramp clear out, then hit the water.

A school of fish cruising down the bank is an easy target for sight fishermen.

4. Elevation

The higher you are, the further you can see down into the water. It’s that simple. This is why most modern day skiffs have a raised casting platform on the bow for the angler and a poling platform aft, for the guide. These allow you to spot fish further away, giving better chances at getting a cast on the fish before it senses or sees you there and spooks. Rigid, roto-molded coolers work great for giving an elevated line of sight as well.

5. Make a Cast

We all dream of that perfect scenario, but majority of the time, it doesn’t happen the way we plan. Sometimes you just see a silhouette of what you think is a fish. Or better yet, the shadow that you thought was a log, happened to turn into a giant snook, that you now have kissed your shot at goodbye. If you have any thought that what you’re looking at is a fish, make a cast! It won’t hurt, and you will be surprised at how many times that inanimate object in the water just happens to be a fish, laid up, waiting on your presentation.

The post Five Tips for Sight Fishing in Saltwater appeared first on Florida Sportsman.

Snook harvest seasonal closure in Atlantic starts Dec. 15

A forum member with his personal best snook, caught in the St. Lucie River.

The recreational harvest season for snook closes Dec. 15 in Atlantic state and federal waters, including Lake Okeechobee and the Kissimmee River, and will remain closed through Jan. 31, 2018, reopening to harvest Feb. 1. Anglers may continue to catch and release snook during the closed season.

Gulf state and federal waters, including Monroe County and Everglades National Park, closed Dec. 1 and will reopen to harvest March 1, 2018.

This and other regular season closures are designed to help protect the species during vulnerable times such as cold weather.

For more information on snook, visit MyFWC.com/Fishing and click on “Saltwater Fishing,” “Recreational Regulations” and “Snook.”

The post Snook Atlantic Seasonal Closure Starts December 15 appeared first on Florida Sportsman.

A sinking line helps maintain a direct connection to the fly in turbulent surf. Taking the fly down deep also improves chances for bites.

Remember summer? Calm, clear water and snook cruising down the trough. Enter fall storms churning up the surf. Those floating fly lines that worked just fine in the flat conditions of summer need to be replaced. Many of us land-based fly casters fish right through the winter using lines more commonly associated with deep water and fast currents. I’m talking about full sinking, type III to even type V fly lines.

Floating lines are certainly useful while fishing from shore but when the going gets rough, a sinking line helps keep your fly closer to the bottom in the surf zone where fish are feeding. It also makes casting into the wind, which usually accompanies rough surf, much easier. Sinking lines are thinner in diameter than their floating counterparts, so they cut through the wind easier. Their coating is infused with heavy tungsten powder to allow sink rates up to 7 inches per second. Now we aren’t talking about plummeting to the bottom like a 2-ounce jig will, but it’s a vast improvement over using just a weighted fly on a floating or intermediate line.

Sinking lines also provide another bonus; they collect far less seaweed than a floater will, as they quickly slip beneath the surface and away from where the weeds usually are. Imagine looking at a floating fly line lying on the ocean’s surface. It will ride up and over every wave that passes under it, making for an indirect connection to your fly. Now imagine what a sinking line does as it cuts below the surface, sinking in a straight path to your fly. The less slack between your hand and the fly, the fewer hits you’ll miss! When using a fast sinking line from shore, it’s generally better to use a leader of only about 4 to 5 feet. This will allow the fly to be more easily pulled down by the fly line, which keeps that direct path between you and the fly. In rougher conditions that warrant the use of sinking lines, the water is usually fairly churned up, so spooking fish because of a short leader is less of a concern.

If you’re using a weighted fly line, it should follow that you would use a weighted fly as well. Your typical lead dumbbell weighted flies, such as Clousers, are always a good pick but sometimes you may want a fly with a different look depending on what it is you’re trying to imitate. I’ve hooked a surprising amount of snook while throwing a small size 2 or 4 sandflea imitation in the winter surf while pompano fishing. I’ll often tweak some of my normally unweighted patterns that I tie by using lead wire along the hook shank before completing the pattern the normal way to add some weight without having to use dumbbell eyes. Deceivers, epoxy flies, and EP style flies round out a selection that should also include some crab, shrimp and the aforementioned sandflea flies.

There is one other piece of equipment that can make or break your rough surf fishing: a stripping basket. It’ll keep you sane as the waves would otherwise wrap your fly line around your feet, legs and any other debris in a 15-foot radius.

Blue fish, Spanish mackerel, snook, pompano, redfish and even bonefish are all fish you might encounter in the surf during fall and winter. They’re there for one reason: to eat! Arm yourself with a fast sinking line to cut through those waves and get your fly down where it needs to be. It will really extend your beach fishing season, and it’s a great time of year to hit the sand and see what grabs your fly. FS

First published Florida Sportsman December 2017

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Slip bobber rig, explained in the article, enables accurate, low-angle casting of live bait into the strike zone.

If you fish the backbays of the lower Florida peninsula for redfish, snook, snapper or sheepshead, you’ve likely found that the high percentage zones, fish-wise, are the cavities below the mangrove canopy.

You can lure some fish out of the mangroves with chum, rattles or flash, but in my experience, your strikes drop 50 to 70 percent when your bait is several feet out from the canopy. Don’t think of this as horseshoes or hand grenades; close doesn’t count.The best bet is to put your baits where the fish live.

Bait is a matter of convenience or peronal preference. I keep it simple: live or frozen shrimp, cutbait or pinfish. The key is to put those baits in the strike zone to optimize your time on the water.

One technique is what I’d call a “chip shot cast.” The chip shot cast is simply a very low trajectory sidearm, sweeping motion. In some ways, it’s modified golf swing. You can practice it at home using a lowered garage door or a plank across two trash cans. Lower the plank until you’re con dent you can skip your offering into an 18 to 24-inch space. The margin between the surface water and the mangrove understory varies with the seasonal tides and daily winds, but 18 to 24 inches is pretty darn good for under the bushes. This discipline is useful on other fronts as well, for instance fishing docks and under low bridges.

The chip shot stroke is a good wind beater approach, as well. Learn to feather your chip shot and develop line-stopping skills to avoid over shooting and ending up in the mangrove prop roots. This is much less demanding than it sounds. Your chip shot cast should be a soft, smooth, relatively close presentation; so feathering and cutting of the cast with your index finger can be easily learned. “Sky hook” casts won’t get you anywhere but in trouble in the bushes or at best a few feet of the canopy; leave your driver mentality home.

Set up a rod, preferably a medium light-action spinning outfit on a 7-foot or so fast taper rod, a very typical inshore rig. Load your reel with 15- or 20-pound braid; I don’t like 10-pound for this application because you’re going to be battling “who knows what” under the canopy. Leaders should be 24 to 36 inches of mono or fluorocarbon; remember you’re fishing only in maybe 18 to 36 inches inches of water typically. Fluorocarbon leaders are optional unless the water is super clear but again it’s your preference.

I like the old timey popping cork and jig setup with brightly colored jigheads. My people get a kick from watching the strike indicator and it keeps ’em from reeling in every 30 seconds, thinking they got a bite. Learn to observe your strike indicator, i.e. bobber!

If you’ve got the patience, set up slip bobbers. They’ll making casting easier everything at the fighting end for easily loading your rod, just like plugging. You can skip the whole rig in under the canopy, delivering your baited jig or livies into the strike zone.

1: Thread the leader through the channel in the green keeper stick.

2: Tie in a stopper knot above the keeper stick.

3: If you’re confident in the depth range you’ll be fishing, you can go sans keeper knot; the leader to line connection will suffice as a stopper knot.

4: Tie on your jighead or hook. Use your favorite knot; I like a Rapala Loop Knot.

5: Crimp the end of your green keeper sticks, with pliers, to make the end smaller, keeping the hook from jamming and encumbering the slipping action.

6: You may want to lengthen your lead- er to suit the varying depth under the canopy and adjust the stopper knot accordingly. This is useful when fishing feeder creeks and deeper docks near passes.

7: I use braid or yarn for my stopper knot. Both are small in diameter and tighten nicely on the leader, making a formation slight enough to pass through the guides without choking your chip shot cast. The stop can be moved and secured with a dab of super glue if desired.

Slip sinker setups are even easier and are useful when the tide is running a tad strong. It’s a sure shot rig when easily plunked side arm into that honey hole. Cutbait can be a mess of shrimp placed on a circle hook, your choice of pinfish or a brown back minnow “primo” placed in harm’s way. Another favorite, especially for redfish, is a cut chunk of ladyfish. FS

First published Florida Sportsman January 2016

The post Shoreline Casting Tips appeared first on Florida Sportsman.

Take care of lethargic and stunned fish

Brett Fitzgerald, Director of the Snook and Gamefish Foundation and a frequent Florida Sportsman contributor, has same words of advice for those concerned about their local snook during the current cold weather. Below are excerpts from an update on the Snook and Gamefish Foundation site: For many, the current dip in weather immediately reminds us of how badly snook were impacted back in 2010. Luckily, the current weather event is not projected to be nearly as impactful. Back then, we had freakishly cold temperatures for over a week, with drizzling rain and consistent wind. That led to a lot of ‘cold kill’ fish deaths.

So far, this event is shaping up to be less severe for a few reasons. First, it shouldn’t last nearly as long. Water cools much slower than the air, so a couple days of chilly nights and cloudy days is far less damaging than a week or more. It also has been a little cooler for a few days, which might have provided a signal for snook up in shallower waters to skedaddle to deeper, safer waters before the chill sets in.

Another difference between this snap and 2010 is the wind direction, which has a bigger impact on the fish along the west coast. Waters from the Everglades up through the Tampa area are a lot more shallow than on the east coast, where deeper waters – warmed from the tropical Gulf Stream – are right next door to many fish hang-outs.

If you’ll recall, the 2010 freeze featured consistent NE winds which blew the west coast tides out and never let them come back in. That trapped a lot of snook in the shallow back country, where they froze by the tens of thousands. If the current winds hold, there might be enough water in the cuts and runs for snook to head to the safety of warmer, deeper waters for a few days.

All that said, there will be cold related fish kills over the next week or so, and many of them will be snook. As usual, you can expect to see more of that along the northern fringes of the snook populations.

Usually, as the trapped snook start to chill, they will slow down and start to swim erratically near the surface, then eventually roll on their side or back and lay still in a stunned state. If it is only a short cold snap and the sun warms water right away, they might survive – at least for a while. But more than likely this leads to death.

As retired FWC snook guru Ron Taylor has pointed out to me many times in the past, many snook that survive the initial cold blast end up dying within a few weeks because their slime coating and/or immune system is damaged, and they are more susceptible to parasites and diseases.

If you are on the water a lot, you will probably see some stunned or dead snook. Here’s what you should do.

First, don’t touch them. If they look dead, they might not be and bothering them in their severely stunned state won’t be doing them any favors. And if they are dead and an FWC officer happens to find out you are grabbing them up, you won’t be doing yourself any favors either.

Speaking of FWC, I was recently reminded that the winter closure in Florida is directly related to weather events just like this. SGF member Capt. Danny Barrow called me after he filmed an episode of “XGEN Fishing Show” with owner Andy Alvarez, and they were talking about snook closed seasons on the show (https://vimeo.com/channels/xgenfishing). A question arose as to exactly why there is a winter closure. A quick call to Jim Whittington at FWC reminded us that the closure was originally put in place because of weather events just like the one we are experiencing. It is illegal to harvest cold-stunned or killed snook, for a variety of reasons (which we hope are obvious to you). To keep FWC officers from having to investigate every snook they encounter in a cooler during an extreme cold snap, it was agreed that the most prudent move would be to eliminate any harvest, making life better for our officers, our snook, and in the long run us snook anglers too.

Back to What-To-Do: Your second move should be to report the killed fish to FWC’s Fish Kill hotline. You can do this by phone (800-636-0511) or online at http://myfwc.com/research/saltwater/health/fish-kills-hotline/. This is actually better than calling your regional FWC office, even if you know there are snook researchers there. The reason is, the hotline is where the information is consolidated across the state, and that is the source of info that will tell the regional offices where to look for issues.

Finally, this little snap needs to serve us all as a reminder of the importance of logging all of our catches in iAngler, using the app or website (www.angleraction.org). The 2010 snap is what started the iAngler program in the first place. Since then, the data has been used in stock assessments for a variety of species in Florida, and has branched out to help other fisheries better their understanding of the fisheries (most recently Atlantic Red Snapper). But it only works if we log our catches. It’s free, and it is a superior personal log book for you. Visit your app store and download the free app, iAngler, and start logging ASAP. This will help across all facets of fishery conservation, including how best to respond after a cold episode like this one.

In summary: Keep your eyes open for stunned or killed fish for the next couple weeks. Report fish kills to FWC. And log your catch in iAngler!

Brett Fitzgerald
Executive Director
The Snook & Gamefish Foundation
Education – Conservation – Research
“Empowering anglers through awareness, advocacy and accountability.”
www.snookfoundation.org
www.angleraction.org

The post Can You Help Those Snook in the Cold? appeared first on Florida Sportsman.

Reel spooled with monofilament for topwater lures.

There’s no question that braided lines and fluorocarbon have made a huge impact on some aspects of sportfishing in Florida and around the nation in the last 10 years. For some types of angling, these new high-tech lines just can’t be beat.

But monofilament has some special properties that still make it the best choice in many situations.

For one, it’s “stretchy.” While this is the very quality that caused a lot of us to switch to braid or fluoro originally, for some types of fishing a bit of give is very helpful. For example, when you’re after soft-mouthed fish like seatrout or crappie, a little built-in stretch can be a big help in putting lightly-hooked fish in the boat.

And, if you’re a quick-on-the-trigger kind of guy, some stretch can also be helpful in adding a millisecond or two to your strike reaction time when a redfish or bass blows up on your topwater plug; maybe just enough for the fish to get the hook, instead of you snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, so to speak. With no-stretch braid, it’s very easy to pull the lure away from the fish with a quick hookset.

There’s also some evidence that mono can be useful to crank bait anglers, bass the primary application but also for some northeast Florida redfish anglers who want a little leeway when their plug strikes a stump, piling or other woody obstruction that may want to latch on and keep it. The stretch and the “snap” built into mono will often allow springing these lures free, while the more authoritative fluoro or braid will drive the hooks into the structure–end of lure, if you don’t have a lure-retriever handy. The stretch and elasticity of mono can also be handy in snapping a lure off a snag at times.

And, mono’s give can also be useful when you’re fighting a jumping fish. Particularly with big guys like tarpon, which have a nasty habit of falling on taut line and breaking it, the stretch of mono can be an advantage. Of course, that advantage is offset in deeper water by the lack of braid’s cable-like ability to pump a fish up, but for tarpon on relatively shallow flats like the Keys or Homosassa, there’s much to be said for mono.

And, monofilament can also “tell” an expert angler when he’s exerting the maximum amount of pressure that’s safe on a given fish. Mono has a slight “give” as it approaches breaking strength, and long-experienced anglers can feel this threshold in the rod, allowing them to ease pressure at just the right moment to avoid a breakoff. Particularly with braid, there’s no warning, one moment you’re hauling the fish in like it’s attached to a logging chain, the next it’s gone.

Mono is of course considerably less visible than braid, and is close to the visibility of fluoro. It makes good leader material, particularly the harder varieties like Mason’s Hard mono which is not only highly resistant to abrasion from fishy jaws, but also is stiff enough to prevent doubling back on itself and snagging the hooks of a topwater with multiple trebles, a frequent problem if you fish braid without a single filament leader. I like TrikFish X-Rated Co-Polymer for this duty as well, and there are a few others that are particularly abrasion-resistant.

Mono casts better than fluorocarbon on both baitcasters and spinning rods–it’s simply more limp and less inclined to take a set than most varieties of fluoro. Not to say light fluorocarbon is problematic, many professional anglers on the top bass circuits fish nothing else, but if you have casting difficulties with fluoro in heavier tests, a switch to quality mono will often solve them. Mono also handles better than braid on baitcasters in tests up to about 40 pounds–after that, the braid diameter is thick enough that it won’t cut down into the spool and cause jams, as lighter braids often do.

Last but not least, of course, good mono is cheaper than quality fluoro and a lot cheaper than name-brand braid. It does not last nearly as long as braid, though, so maybe that’s a wash–in any case, don’t write monofilament off just yet.

First published Florida Sportsman December 2015

The post Perks of Monofilament for Inshore Fishing appeared first on Florida Sportsman.

Could it be that your vision of livebait fishing is too limited? You recoil at the idea of committing much time to the perimeter of an egg sinker or bobber. You’d rather whirl around the bay with a trolling motor and cast lures until your elbow says quit. But what if you simply let that live bait swim where it wants to go? Let your bait do the walking, so to speak.

Last spring, I watched Capt. Scott Crippen of Fort Pierce turn in the fastest inshore slam (snook, trout, redfish) maybe I’ve ever seen. He did something with his live baits that was perfectly suited to the environments he fishes—open grassflats, spoil island points—but I’m confident the technique would work in many other places.

What Crippen does is hook a sardine or thread herring through the meaty, top side of the tail—just below the adipose fin and above the spine. He casts the bait in the general direction of the area he wants to fish, and then he just lets it swim. And swim. And… swim… until it has a head-on collision with spotted death, which happens pretty often during the springtime in Crippen’s neighborhood.

Sharp live bait hook is placed into freeline bait. Baits to be fished in one place with corks or sinkers are more often hooked through the lips or nose.

There are a few things at work here. One, the tail-hooked bait is quite aerodynamic. The head leads the way on the arc of the cast. Two, the bait is securely affixed to the hook, much more so than a bait that’s passed through the nostrils or lips.

But the biggest advantage is that a bait hooked in the tail will tend to swim away from the pull of the line. That means the baitfish will embark on an odyssey of exploration. Essentially, that oily, smelly, reflective baitfish will do what you would’ve done with your plugs and jigs. It will cover the water and find the fish.

Crippen, who guides on a 24 Billfish bayboat, uses 7- to 7 ½-foot spinning rods hook for most of his livebait duties. The Fort Pierce-Vero corridor of the Indian River Lagoon, where Crippen fishes, is perhaps best-known for producing big seatrout; the all-tackle record, 17 pounds, 7 ounces, was caught here in May, 1995. If Crippen and his anglers are primarily chasing seatrout on open-water flats or channels, he’ll use 15- or 20-pound braided line with a 20-pound-test fluorocarbon leader or three or four feet, terminating with a loop knot affixed to a 3/0 or 4/0 Owner shortshank livebait hook. The time of year when seatrout are at their largest, the spring and early summer prespawn period, also coincides with clear water. This grants a bit of an advantage to the angler using light fluoro leader. However, there are other considerations to weigh.

Pre spawn snook feed heavily around bait schools in shallow water.

If fishing around mangroves or other structure, Crippen bumps up to 30-pound leader to provide some protection against not only an abrasive environment, but the rough jaws and sharp gill plates of snook. If tarpon are in play, 40- or 50-pound leader is a good choice, he said.

“March through May are about the best months for the flats here,” said Crippen. “When the big snook are moving out of the bridges and inlets and up onto the flats and spoils islands, is also when the big trout are up there. And naturally, we always have redfish. This is a time of year when you can fish lighter stuff—4000-size reels—and hook 20-pound snook in a couple feet of water.”

Crippen described his technique:

“It’s kind of the same type of fishing for all these species,” he explained. “The tail-hooked bait always swims away—you can jig the rodtip a little bit, and that fires up the bait and it takes off. A nose-hooked bait tends to stay where you throw it, maybe swimming in circles.”

This type of bait-fishing is far more active than what many anglers might expect. There’s no resting a rod in a holder and waiting for something to happen. Less casting than with artificial lures, yes, but still, the angler has to stay engaged with the bait.

“Leaving the bail open, I’ll keep my finger on the spool—if I get a bite, I’ll let the line run a few seconds, then close the bail and reel up to set the hook.”

If the bait turns toward the boat and Crippen loses touch with it, he’ll close the bail, reel up the slack, bump the rodtip and let the bait swim away again.

The first spot we fished with Crippen was a mangrove shoreline on a spoil island, one of many such spots that line the Intracoastal Waterway in the southern Indian River Lagoon. The tide was incoming, sweeping gently left to right across our bow. We had staked the boat from the stern using twin Power Poles, which enabled us to hold position perpendicular to the current.

Chippen, a guide and also owner of White’s Bait and Tackle, works on one third of a red-trout-snook slam boat side.

The current was just strong enough to carry our tail-hooked pilchards down the shoreline. We’d cast toward shore on our left, and monitor the line for a strike as the baits drifting downtide, all the while pulling toward deep, dark cavities beneath the mangroves. Within minutes, Crippen, Ralph Allen and I each notched a couple of snook releases. The guide had a spot not far away that promised much larger snook.

The next “spot” was less of a spot and more of a football field of seagrass. The main area of the guide’s interest was a strip of rocky shoreline on a spoil island. A school of mullet rippled the surface and flashed enticingly there. But off to the north stretched a wide expanse of good-looking grass, with vague light-colored potholes visible as far as I could see.

Here again, the tail-hooked baits worked out perfectly. On back-to-back casts, Crippen—who’d left the snook biting only moments ago–pulled in an upper-slot redfish and a seatrout. It was as if he’d been hired by the area’s chamber of commerce to put on a display of the region’s sportfish. (Actually, in a round-about way, he had… but that’s another story.)

Anyway, Crippen uses these tail-hooked baits to catch not only the inshore slam species, but also tarpon. We didn’t hook any on our trip with him, but I immediately saw the practicality of his method. The Indian River doesn’t have much in the way of deep water, besides the ICW and some other dredged channels. Tarpon often spread out over the grassflats adjacent to such canals. In shallow water, tarpon are spooky—running even an electric motor near them can put them on guard. They probably won’t hump up and flee like seatrout or snook, but they likely will clam up and refuse baits or lures.

Crippen locates a rolling school of tarpon, sets up his boat for a drift (or stake out) and then fires a long cast with the tail-hooked bait, letting it swim into range or paddle about until a hungry fish finds it.

One drawback to this free-swim method is that it doesn’t work especially well around snaggy structure such as high-tide mangroves or docks. Here, it’s better to contain your bait so that it doesn’t hang you up. Still, there’s a good argument for letting that bait swim on its own. Simply add a slotted foam popping cork to the line so that you can track the bait. The cork will burden and slow the bait a little, which is one reason to leave it off in open water.

A cork placed a few feet above a tail-hooked mullet, for instance, is a terrific rig for pursuing snook around seawalls and jetties. The fireworks of the fall mullet run are lodged at the forefront of many anglers’ minds, especially in Southeast Florida, but there’s another “run” in the spring that gets big fish wound up. Silver mullet (identifiable by the black trailing edge of the tail fin) of 7 to 10 inches are a welcome mouthful for snook fattening up for the summer spawn. These are hard-swimming baits, and if you want to keep one confined to a strike zone—tight up against a wall, for instance—it’s best to tail-hook the bait. Much as Crippen handles the sardines and herrings on the trout flats, if you put a little tension on the line, you can redirect an errant mullet that may be swimming for open water.

First Published Florida Sportsman Shallow Water Angler Special May 2016

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Atlantic snook season runs from February 1 to June 1

The season for snook harvest in Florida on the east coast or Atlantic shore reopens today (Feb. 1) and continues to June 1. Harvested fish must be not less than 28″ total length (TL) or more than 32″ TL, and the limit is one per person per day.

Different rules are in effect for the Gulf Coast, where the season remains closed through the end of February.

Visit www.myfwc.com for details.

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In this Florida Sportsman seminar, Reel Time Host Capt. George Gozdz discusses his hard bait lure choices while fishing on the Peace River. These tips can be applied to almost anywhere you want to throw hard baits inshore.

A key factor when targeting species inshore is finding the depth in which the fish are in. Whether it be on the surface, the mid water column, or on the bottom. Choosing a bait that reaches this water column is crucial to success.

As Capt. George Gozdz stated, the early morning tends to be the best time to fish a topwater plug. The sun has not warmed the water yet and the fish are more active in the early morning hours. But what do you do if water is cold and the fish are lethargic?

Lipped baits are a great option when in a situation like this. Know your depth and choose your lipped bait accordingly. Working the edges and dropoffs of the Peace River, Gozdz was able to work the middle water column with the Yo-Zuri 3D and Crystal Minnow, where the snook were staged.

Tip: If you are marking fish at a certain depth, and cannot get a bite on your lure, try changing your retrieval rate. A twitch, twitch pause approach tends to cause a reaction strike from predatory species.

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Tricks for soaking up scent products: To treble hooks, author has added y-tying foam strips and yarn wraps. Single hooks have knotted yarn strip.

Nowadays we’re all familiar with soft lures impregnated with fish, shrimp or clam scents. These are deadly effective, especially in cold water, when redfish, seatrout and other fish tend to be somewhat lethargic. You can even buy extra bottles and tubes of popular fish juices to recharge your soft bodies.

Lately I’ve been experimenting with ways to add this kind of scent appeal to other types of lures. Here are a few suggestions:

Wash-and Wax:

Shallow water suspending plugs are great for thoroughly working high-percentage zones in coastal waters. Think of mangroves canopy, wide grass beds, and those sweet spot potholes and prop ditches. Twitch the lure and retrieve slowly, allowing it to flash and vibrate over a likely holding spot.

Now imagine if you could add a scent trail. Olfactory attraction might be just the thing to stimulate a “feed neutral” gamefish into striking, especially if the water is dirty and visibility limited. Trouble is, any spray, liquid or gel product is apt to quickly wash away from the plastic lure.

The solution is to first clean hard body plugs with an acetone-based product like finger nail polish remover; mineral spirits will do fine, too. This cleaning process will dissolve and remove the release compound used in the production of hard plastic lures. A mildly gritty bathroom cleanser and old tooth brush works maybe even better, since it will rough up the smooth plastic surface, allowing the scent product to adhere better.

These processes provide a much better surface for the spray or gel scent. You’ll find yourself making many fewer applications of the scents, confident the scent product isn’t just dissolving on the first few casts.

Soak it Up:

Another approach is to add absorbent materials to the lure or hook, mindful to choose products that don’t impede the action. Small strips of foam, the type used to tie Gurgler flies, work pretty well. Segments of rabbit fur strips, also used in fly tying, are also great. Or try scrap strips of suede or felt. These items will all absorb and hold an extra dose of scent.

An equally simple and effect scent saver can be formed by wrapping a small ball of yarn in a fish attractive color around your tailing hook of any treble hook lure. The yarn will soak up nicely with scent, hold it and disperse it. You can attach a yarn ball in front of your lure on the leader, much like a scented yarn fly used in steelhead and salmon fishing.

String ’em Along:

One of the simplest and most effective add-ons is a small section of yarn knotted on a jerkbait hook. Simply tie the length of yarn on the hook where you’d like it to trail along the lure body. I like to take a hair comb and flare the filaments of yarn so it pulsates and ripples as it’s retrieved. This works very well and adds that special flavor to all those “plain Jane” softies.

Marinate Overnight:

Try preparing your batch of scent savers the night before you head out. Let ’em soak up the sauces and they’ll be even more effective. Apply a nice layer of sauce on your favorite plugs, too, and store them in a container where they can marinate along with the appetizer strips and yarn. FS

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