Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2018 i Florida Sportsman

Sometimes, when you’re trying to impress someone, you wind up impressing even yourself. This time last year, mid-December, I had a charming Swedish family, friends of my brother, out for an afternoon cruise. They were like something out of a movie, which isn’t far off. Jacob Fellander is an avante garde photographer; his wife, Eva, a beautiful actress. With their three, squeaky-clean, multilingual boys, they are globe-travelers, experienced, but patient and open to surprise. There I was, on my dirty old boat, harping about water quality. How this end of the Indian River suffers from polluted water from Lake Okeechobee (Fellanders squinted at my chartplotter), but by December, it usually clears some. I pointed out wading birds on the flats, boats anchored at the sandbar. I began prattling on about…

Ocean Pointe Suites might suit your purposes if you’re visiting Key Largo, Tavernier or Islamorada. Ocean Pointe Suites is a condo-hotel and suites are rented by the management. One- and 2-bedroom fully-equipped suites are available. • All suites have full kitchens, living/ dining room, and private balconies • Located on a 60-acre private oceanfront sanctuary with sandy beach • Deep water marina, on-site boat ramp, ample boat trailer parking Ocean Pointe Suites is located just off A1A at 500 Burton Dr., Tavernier. The phone is (305) 853-3000. The website is: www.providentresorts.com/ocean-pointe-suites/…

This year’s duck season is split into two phases: Nov. 17-25 and Dec. 8-Jan. 27. The bag limit is 6 ducks, including no more than 4 mallards (of which only 2 can be females), 4 scoters, 4 eiders, 4 long-tailed ducks, 3 wood ducks, 2 redheads, 2 black duck, 2 scaup, 2 canvasbacks, 2 pintails, 1 mottled duck (Florida duck) and 1 fulvous whistling-duck. In order to hunt ducks you must have $5 Florida waterfowl permit and $27.50 Federal duck stamp in addition to hunting license and migratory bird permit. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has a wealth of resources for waterfowl hunters at myfwc.com. The commission’s 22-page Guide to Waterfowl Hunting is essential reading, particularly for the new hunter.…

DECEMBER SPOTLIGHT Flounder Inshore and Nearshore Flounder are on the move, out of rivers and bays to winter in deeper waters. On the way, they can be targeted at inlets and jetties and even beaches these months, and they make great sport and great eating. The most popular technique is a live shrimp or finger mullet on a short leader with a weight to get down. Drag that bait across the bottom or let it sit in a productive spot, and get ready to hang on. The state limit is 10 per person per day, with a 12-inch minimum size. SEND US YOUR PHOTOS We welcome your fishing and hunting photos for publication in the Action Spotter and in our online community galleries at www.floridasportsman.com. Send digital pictures, 600 KB…

BEST BET For sheer excitement and the best of table fare, it’s pretty tough to beat sight fishing tripletail on the crab trap buoys in the month of December. Waters have chilled a bit, stone crab trap buoys have been marinating in the Gulf for just over a month at this point and waves of larger fish start to move in once mini ecosystems start on the buoys. Cold Calling December marks what can be considered the start of true winter fishing in the 10,000 Islands region. While most indigenous species to the area are in play here, several seasonal fish make the headlines. The spotted seatrout, sheepshead, whiting, pompano, silver trout and black drum are all fish that tend to show up with regularity when Santa has left town,…

BEST BET No question, because of their closer proximity to shore and perhaps because they are the most preferred fish in Florida restaurants, the top angling target this month has to be gag grouper. Targeting gags can be done with some deep diving plugs that run between 30 and 40 feet or with small lipped plugs trolled behind a downrigger ball at whatever depth you want the lure to run. If you’re using planers, run a pair of small lipped plugs, a big curly tail jig, or a spoon behind a No. 2 or No. 3 planer for grouper. You can also put out a flat line with live bait in the event you run into some kingfish. Enjoy the Lows The majority of the days this month have negative…

BEST BET The Jacksonville jetties hold fish 365 days a year, but never more than during December. Sheepshead will be wide open. The bag limit has dropped from 15 to 8, and it will be interesting to see what the effects are on how many fish we see coming in. Fiddlers and clams will be the bait of choice. Stacked Up If you had only one month to fish Florida, it would be hard to argue against December. For starters, almost every other state is dealing with real cold weather. I mean like below 50 degree weather. Perish the thought. Here in God’s country, the wind will dictate where we fish, but there are very few days in December we can’t find a place to catch something. Offshore, if it’s…

The current recreational fishing regulations for pompano include a daily bag limit of SIX FISH PER DAY WITH AN 11-INCH MINIMUM size limit when measured to the fork of the tail. LICENSE: You must have a saltwater fishing license to fish for pompano unless you are exempt (child under 16 years of age, resident over 65, and a few other categories). If you’ll only be fishing from the surf or other shore access points, a no-cost resident saltwater shoreline fishing license is available in lieu of the regular saltwater license. Also, anglers on most coastal fishing piers are covered by the pier saltwater license; all you do is pay the entry fee and enjoy a day on the water.…

“At SeaVee, we haven’t had a Seakeeper installed on a 29 yet,” said John Caballero, Marketing Director at SeaVee Boats, “though we have done many on our boats 32-foot and up, on the 34, 37 and 39. Maybe for the smaller boats, it’s because it’s an economy of scale concern, because, as a percentage of the total cost of the boat it becomes significant. Seakeeper knows that and they are determined to mainline this technology on as many boat platforms as possible. They’ve also done a great job of supporting their product and collaborating with us. The interesting thing is, the smaller the platform of the boat, the more you stand to benefit with a Seakeeper. “For the bigger boats, the customers absolutely love them. The upside of a Seakeeper…

“Stick around them too long and their calls echoing in your eardrum will precede any sleep.” From at least the moment I was aware I was staring at a different animal, my first black-bellied whistling duck sighting took place in Hardee County in 2002. I was turkey hunting near a wetland when I heard a strange peeping. I glanced skyward to watch a cormorant-sized bird with an orangish-pink bill and gangly legs loaf overhead. Not an avid waterfowler at the time, I remember thinking it was an exotic breed of goose, a species that should be shooed away by warthogs at an African watering hole rather than milling around the feral pigs of Central Florida. After that hunt, I fingered through my well-worn Audubon’s Guide to North American Birds —because…

BEST BET Take advantage of the fair weather days. December can throw curveballs into your fishing plans, so stay informed to make better decisions on where to go and what to target. My go-to app for wind is windfinder.com. I find it very reliable and accurate and I can plan my charters around it. If the winds are gonna be stiff, you can always fish for spotted seatrout and sharks in the basins and backcountry up and down the Keys. Old School Rock With the cooler water temperatures, a plethora of snappers, groupers, porgies, mackerels, and many others reef dwellers move inshore and inhabit shallow water structures for the winter. Up and down the Keys chain, rock piles and coral formations can be found from 10 to 40 feet of…

BEST BET Take advantage of the last month of grouper season and bring home dinner. Winter nor’easters typically accompanied by a solid swell can make getting out to those deep wrecks and reefs difficult, especially in a small boat. This just so happens to work out, since the grouper push in to shallower water this time of the year. Tactics stay the same, just give them a shot in 40 to 60 feet of water instead of 140 feet. A live grunt or sardine is my preferred bait. These shallow wrecks usually yield a nice mixed bag of snapper, as well. Right Time With the holidays amongst us and family by our side, fishing and hunting time may be restricted (just a bit!). But why not go check out some…

BEST BET Make most of your December about seatrout, but don’t forget my favorite targetredfish. Look for reds foraging or tailing on flats, especially on lower tides and at great distances from rocky shorelines. Be aware that shallow water telegraphs sound at long range, so be stealthy. Wading will give you an advantage, as will noisy topwater plugs like MirrOlure Top Dogs. Make long accurate casts well in front of your prey and don’t scream like a little baby if you hook up! Winter Tactics As a writer, I’ve always felt that leading a story with talk about the weather was a cheap way of using up word counts and page space. However, this year is different. We’ve had a few recent winters that were warmer than usual, and with…

BEST BET When the water temperature starts to cool, striped bass action starts to heat up. We are lucky to have such a great species to catch in Northwest Florida. Striped bass occur naturally in both the Apalachicola and Ocklochonee rivers and have been enhanced and maintained by the FWC for years. The tailrace of the CH Corn Dam below Lake Talquin is one of the easiest places to find stripers. The fish gather below the dam around the turbine outflows and flood gates. Winter Games Some good things come in small packages and black seabass are one of those things. They usually only weigh one or two pounds and when hooked don’t make blistering runs or breathtaking leaps in the air. But put a pan-fried bass fillet on a…

Everyone is familiar with the great seasonal migrations made by birds and some terrestrial animals (wildebeest), but did you know pelagic sharks can make even longer migrations? In the 1980s, researchers using conventional dart tags discovered that pelagic sharks like the shortfin mako made long seasonal migrations, but it wasn’t until recently that scientists learned that pelagic sharks can swim more than 8,000 miles. Shark researchers using satellite tags equipped with GPS have documented not only extraordinary long-distance movements, but incredible swimming speeds. Carol, a 6-foot shortfin mako tagged off New Zealand, traveled about 37 miles per day and up to 62 miles in one day. In just six months, Carol traveled from New Zealand to Fiji and back, a roundtrip of some 8,265 miles. On our side of the…

Besides the black-bellied whistling duck (Dendrocygna autumnalis), Florida hunters also find fulvous whistling duck (D.bicolor) in the same habitats. As with black-bellies, fulvous drakes and hens are nearly identical with tawny brown heads, chest and bellies and darker brown wings and backs. Despite sharing similar behavioral traits, the fulvous isn’t as widespread during duck season as black-bellies. Why is that? Well, from FWC’s webpage, “Separate populations of fulvous whistling ducks occur in Asia, Africa, Madagascar, South America, and North America. Prior to about 30 years ago, fulvous whistling ducks did not nest in Florida. Today, nesting fulvous whistling ducks are abundant in rice-growing, freshwater wetland areas of south Florida. In winter, many fly south.” As some ducks arrive in the state over winter, it appears others are leaving. Nonetheless, plenty…

BEST BET When the water temps drop, a good place to fish is East Cape Canal in Flamingo for snook. It’s a good idea to have 12 dozen shrimp with you if you’re fishing the full outgoing tide. Chances are you will use them all. Take a live shrimp and attach it to a ¼-ounce Hookup Lure jighead. Cast it out in the current and wait for the strike. Or, instead of the shrimp, add a scented artificial shrimp to that jighead and bounce it off the bottom. Season of Sails This time of year, the Gulf Stream’s bluewater edge often can be found just a few miles offshore and when the wind is blowing against that current push, there is nothing cooler to witness than a group of sailfish…

BEST BET Our best bet this month in SW Florida is to head offshore for gags during this last month of the fall gag season. Locating ledges, even small, foot-high ledges, is the key to catching inshore gags. Between Boca Grande Pass and Sanibel there are productive ledges in as little as 30 feet of water which can be fished by anglers in bay boats when the weather is right. A great strategy is to troll deep diving plugs while watching the bottom machine. When a fish is hooked or a promising ledge is crossed, save the location and circle back around to run figure-eights over it a few times since fall gags often bunch up on these shallow structures. Shallow and Deep Snook and redfish look different, act different,…

BEST BET By Thanksgiving we’re due to have cold fronts moving in from the northwest and a drop in water temperatures should signal the start of the winter flounder runs at Ponce Inlet, Port Canaveral and Sebastian Inlet. Live finger mullet or mud minnows fished on the bottom with sliding sinker rigs is the choice method from shore or from a boat. Use a short 12-inch leader below the sinker and the swivel to keep the bait near the bottom. Expect crowds at Sebastian Inlet with its history of “door mats.” Boaters anchoring out of the inlet channel west of the State Road A1A Bridge generally score the better catches. It’s also a good spot for anglers on foot along the rocky shorelines. On the Comeback It was 14 years…

BEST BET The best bet will be taking advantage of our other great resources and doing some hunting. There is nothing in the world like duck hunting in our backwaters and watching the sun climb up over the water. Last season was a little disappointing, but the true hunters will stick with it and be dedicated again this year. Early season is usually best spent over wood duck holes or in the backwater bays. As the season moves on the ducks will make their way to the Intracoastal. It usually doesn't take much work to find a limit of redheads in our area, and nothing compares to watching a flock of 300 birds decoy into the spread. Best of Both It’s been a few months since the hurricane gave the…