Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2017 i Florida Sportsman

If you get into the sticky field of horse-trading, be mighty careful. You don't want to give away the great Secretariat and get a stubborn mule in return. Horse-trading (better known as compromising) is the name of the game now in Tallahassee as the Florida Legislature limps toward adjournment. Whether anything significant is accomplished to tame the gushers of pollution that besiege our waters is an unknown at this writing. We suggested that only the Shadow may know the inside doings. Our best bet to get the low-down may be to become a fly on the wall in some of the secret gatherings going on night and day in the capitol. Short of that difficult intelligence work, we urgently need once again to contact lawmakers to demand passage of a…

Icom IC-M93D Icom recently introduced a handheld VHF/GPS unit that’s small in size but big on features. The company bills it as the “world’s slimmest floating DSC radio.” Translation: This powerful device fits easily into a tackle bag, life vest pocket or other container. If you need to send a distress message, simply press the recessed rear panel button: It’s there where you need it, but unlikely to be pressed accidentally. The unit has a 2.3-inch monochrome screen, waterproof rating of IPX7, and a host of GPS features which enable backup navigation, if needed. Remember to register for a Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) for devices like this. Retail prices hover around $300. See www. icomamerica.com Taco Transom Cross Tie Cleat Headed to the Bahamas or Florida Keys for a…

If you were to ask me what’s the best time of year to come down to the Florida Keys to go fishing, I would surely respond, “May!” The fishing season peaks in May around the Florida Keys and that’s in all depths and environments. Inshore, the tarpon are gathered in the largest numbers, patiently waiting for the palolo worm hatch. This small worm-like creature hatches out of the coral rocks mainly on the south side of the Florida Keys in about 15 to 25 feet of water. There are many shallow coral heads where these worms hatch, typically around the full moon in May. This hatch creates a feeding frenzy for tarpon, which gives anglers a lot of opportunities to hook up. Fly fishing is the best way to accurately…

Muggy mornings, light winds, afternoon thunderstorms, all common signs of summer. May is when you really start to notice these summer conditions. We aren’t the only ones who feel the heat though. Many fish will be heading towards their summertime residence. Find that “home” and you’ve won half of the battle. Inshore, snook is a popular target this time of year. May is the last month to harvest snook, before season closes June 1. There are three main ways I prefer to target snook right now. A large chunk of the snook population migrate from back in the estuaries, out to the inlets for their annual spawn. “Clouds” of snook can be seen staged in the current along the jetties and rip-rap. The Jupiter, St. Lucie and Fort Pierce inlets…

This month’s column isn’t necessarily about wade fishing, but it is about fishing shallow. When I get the inevitable question, “What are the best months to fish the Big Bend?” I always reply, “May or November.” In November, the redfish and spotted seat-rout are feeling the onset of cooler weather and gorging in an attempt to survive the winter. And in May, they’re feeling frisky and hungry in the shallow Gulf waters. The coastal shelf along our Big Bend is long and low. It’s often said that the Gulf only gets a foot deeper for every mile offshore. That’s not quite the case, but in certain places you can count on finding knee-deep water a mile from shore. That’s why you see so many shallow draft technical poling skiffs and…

Anglers looking for speckled trout have a lot to look forward to in May. The grassflats in Northwest Florida are where the action is and there is no shortage of grassflats to fish. One, St. Marks, has been known for its trout fishing for decades. The early commercial trout fishermen typically drifted across these flats in long wooden boats with multiple cane poles rigged with mullet or pinfish strips. They drifted with the wind and this was usually from deep to shallow if the wind was on shore. This was a good way to cover a lot of area as well as to find out what depth the fish preferred. This is the same today. Modern trout anglers set up a drift pattern and either fish lures such as suspending…

Upside of Lake Okeechobee: There are many places to fish. Downside of Lake Okeechobee: There are many places to fish. Realizing this conundrum, Timmy Horton leveraged available technology to dial in specific areas en route to winning the Bassmaster Elite Series event on Florida’s big pond in late February. Notching his second Bassmaster win on the Big O, Horton said he looked for the kind of spots that offered a balance of protection and access. Bass like cover, but not so much that in inhibits their objectives. “What I like to find in Okeechobee and Florida lakes in general are areas that are not too thick and not (completely) choked off,” Horton said. “I like areas with heavy cover, but it needs to be patchy. It needs to have a…

Stacey Johnson makes her home in Port St. Lucie, FL, but readily admits she is more “at home” anytime she slips below the waves with a speargun in hand. Stacey popped up on the Florida spearfishing community radar in July 2014. As a newcomer to the sport, she shot a 13.5-pound gag grouper out of Spring Hill, FL. The International Underwater Spearfishing Association recognizes Stacey’s gag as the world record for the Women’s Speargun category. Most fishermen, whether line or spear, spend a considerable amount of time at their passion before they ever get close to a world record. Stacey had been spearfishing for only five months when she achieved this feat. Stacey was born in California, but her family moved to Florida when she was a baby. She developed…

As we cleared the inlet I looked east toward a reef zone known locally as the Sand Pile. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. A solid mass of boats—60, 80, who knows—clotted the area. No doubt they were catching Spanish sardines and cigar minnows. We wanted those baits, too. But that traffic jam was going to test our patience and erode the hours we’d planned to fish. I stopped to ponder our predicament. That’s when I noticed silver fish flipping at the surface near our boat, and then a steady push of water. We figured they were sardines or herrings. My friend Darrin Jole cast a sabiki rig. No bites. Suddenly, an unidentifiable predator rushed through the school. Forty or 50 of the little fish, long and slender, took…

The savvy snook fisherman is well prepared to get in a few more great fishing sessions before the season closes on June 1 in Atlantic waters. (It closes May 1 in Gulf waters and Monroe County.) During the month of May, snook can be found in schools feeding on the saltwater side of almost every salinity dam in South Florida. Catch it right, such as when the dam opens for the first time in many days and you could find yourself experiencing a snook feeding bonanza. Small baitfish like gizzard shad, mullet, shiners and mojarras often get trapped on the freshwater side of an unopened dam and when the dam opens, the baitfish find themselves being pulled through the dam and into the waiting snooks’ mouths. Fishermen will catch some…

It’s time for our famous tarpon fishery to shift into high gear. Boca Grande Pass will produce plenty of tarpon for those anglers who know how to present baits in the fast-moving tidal currents, a job that’s made more challenging when there are lots of boats on site. The late-afternoon new moon hill tides that are predicted for the historically very busy Memorial Day Weekend may help to spread the boats out to the east of the Pass if a good crab flush gets going. If you don’t want to fish Boca Grande Pass on Memorial Day Weekend, the full moon hill tides about two weeks earlier look good too. There are also plenty of tarpon strategies other than fishing Boca Grande. Early morning beach fishing will be good on…

Fishable area in the Garcia Reservoir off State Road 512 west of Fellsmere, totals about 2,000 acres. That’s small in comparison to some of the larger big-bass reservoirs like the nearby 6,000-acre Farm 13-Stick Marsh, 10 miles to the north. For that reason, Garcia can be overlooked as a good bass fishery. The reservoir boundaries encompass 3,149 acres but the southern one-third is thickly vegetated, unsuitable for fishing and has a limited horsepower requirement for small boats. The remaining 2¼-mile-by-2-mile square Garcia section, sometimes listed as Ansin-Garcia or Miami Lakes Garcia, is separated from the southern third by an earthen dike. Locals in East Central Florida know the main body of Garcia to be an exceptional bass lake for fish up to 7 pounds, and it’s a popular venue for…

May is one of my favorite times to enjoy the outdoors in the Panhandle. Warm southern breezes and sunny skies make for perfect long days on the boat. Add in some phenomenal fishing and it’s hard to find a better time and place to get salty. Inshore, the trout bite is really turning on around the flats. Spanish and king mackerel are cruising the beaches and buoys from Mexico Beach to the Alabama stateline. Offshore bottom fishing is as good as it gets, and the pelagic species like wahoo, mahi and billfish are beginning to show. The choices are endless. My choice would be heading offshore and fishing for a variety of bottom species while keeping an eye out for pelagics. The best part of bottom fishing in Florida is…

Asked: At the 2017 Miami International Boat Show Q What technologies have improved outboard fuel efficiency in recent years? Rob Paterson, BRP Product Marketing Specialist, Sturtevant, WI With our G2 engines, we worked with the University of Wisconsin and used a thermodynamics program actually designed for testing nuclear bombs to see what happens inside them! Using that technology, we were able to adjust cylinders and chambers—everything in the engine, air intakes, exhaust ports--to optimize the amount of fuel burned. So everything that goes in combusts, creating the most fuel-efficient engines. Jared Reichenberger, Mercury Brand Manager for Propellers, Fond du Lac, WI About 5 years ago, we had center console guys running to the Bahamas, curious about fuel economy and what props are best. This spun into our Enertia Eco project—resulting…

Good alligator hunting later this summer takes preparation and application—this month. It’s time to put in your applications for limited entry and quota hunting permits for alligator hunting sites during the upcoming season, which runs Aug. 15 to Nov. 1. The first phase of the application period begins the first week in May, followed by three other rounds for hunters still chasing permits. In each of the first three rounds, hunters will list their top choices for location and dates of their preferred hunts and hunts will be awarded on the basis of the lottery drawing. The second application phase is held in the middle of May, also lasting ten days. A third phase drawing is held some time at the start of June, and finally any remaining slots are…

Why not simply drop a jig or swimbait to tarpon in Boca Grande Pass? You can try, but from April through June, the jig must be a conventional design with the lead or weight permanently molded around the eye of the hook. No “break-away” jigs or other terminal tackle designed to fall off. For many years, Boca Grande anglers affixed lead sinkers or jigheads to the bend or shank of a hook with plastic wire ties, telephone wire or other sacrificial materials designed to release the weight upon hookup. The objective was to improve landings, as tarpon frequently shake heavy lures. The tackle rule was implemented by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) in 2013, after proponents of “traditional” livebait drift-fishing successfully argued, FWC concluded, that the breakaway jig…

“What depth are they biting?” You hear it all day long on the VHF, and it’s a lazy question that invites deception and confusion. When someone volunteers an answer with some level of credibility, your first objective should be to determine—personally—what it is about that range that might be holding fish. Go there, if you aren’t catching anything where you are now. But if what you observe on scene is a featureless swath of uniform water, don’t throw all your resources into it. Depth is a convenient means of relaying general information about where migratory fish such as cobia, king mackerel and sailfish fish have been biting, but it rarely tells the whole story. Fifty feet, 100 feet, 200 feet, 1,000 feet: Free-swimming fish have no means of identifying or…

What’s On Tap “Pushing out to blue water can also put you in a different class of mangrove snapper. It’s not uncommon to hit 10-pounders at these depths. Yellowtail, reds, vermilion, lane, and many other snappers are also caught at these depths, so bone up on your regulations and season closures to stay legal.”—from the West Central Spotter, p. 90. Send us your photos We welcome your fishing and hunting photos for publication in the Action Spotter and in our online community galleries at w w w.floridaspor tsman.com. We prefer digital pictures, 600 KB to 1 MB in jpeg format. For smartphone photos, email the Actual Size—highest resolution shot. Images must not have appeared or been submitted elsewhere. Send photos to: photos@floridaspor tsman.com. Include names of people pictured, hometowns, location…

While a host of die-hard anglers target tarpon this month in the 10,000 Islands region, two species of fish are certainly worth targeting alongside Mega-lops Atlanticus. Each May, droves upon droves of prespawn snook migrate through our area passes to fan out along sandy beaches from north Naples all the way to the Cape shores of the Everglades. With the warmer than usual winter we had this year, this migration may have started as early as late April. It should last until the first few weeks of June. On beaches close to home, you might get a few snook on the line prior to going to work in the morning. With the snowbirds retreating to their northern dwellings, the beach traffic is considerably lighter during May, so finding a parking…

For certain the final run of kingfish should be underway. It’s tarpon time, but this is just the beginning and the excitement of the hunt, stalk, and catch only builds as we get to peak season in July. Catch-and-release snook fishing can be at its best. But if you want the excitement of big game fishing without necessarily having to go way offshore, this may be the month for you to fish. Bait schools have been around non-stop throughout winter and into spring. Availability has been good and has kept kingfish around almost the entire time. Fish that are normally lean from winter and eager to feed may already be fat from feeding and much healthier, so you might need to step up tackle for a bigger battle than the…

Inshore, it’s rapidly becoming an early and late fishery for reds and trout. If I had to pay the upkeep and maintenance on an offshore boat for the ability to fish just one month a year, May would certainly be that month. May is so good we actually need two or three of them. We could replace unneeded months like February and August with extra Mays. Let’s start from the inside with freshwater opportunities. The bass spawn has passed, but they haven’t gone anywhere. They’re feeding heavily and it’s the spawning bream that hold their attention in the grass early in the morning. This is prime surface lure time, and the action in the river and area lakes can be fantastic. As the bass pull out of the grass after…

Long periods of calm seas, favorable winds, clear water and a long list of species to fish for all make this a prime time of year for a crossing to the Bahamas from Florida. If you have a passport and a few days off, you might want to consider making the 60-mile crossing to West End from Jupiter or other ports in Southeast Florida. Between the inshore diving and spearfishing, deep dropping, and offshore fishing, the West End area offers a wide variety of activities to keep you busy during the hot summer days. Last summer we made the crossing in our 29-foot SeaVee. Our family had reservations at Blue Marlin Cove for the weekend and our plan was to fish offshore and deep drop the surrounding area. The region…