Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2022 i Florida Sportsman

Last summer, when I found a canoe advertised at 42 pounds, I was immediately curious. When the local dealer, Ted Nielander of Native Water Sports in Jensen Beach, humored my request to test rack the canoe, I threw it on my truck and there it stayed. Today, my “ultimate middle-age solo cartopper” is a 12-foot Esquif Adirondack. It’s made of T-Formex, a laminate of ABS sheets, foam core and an outer plastic skin. You wouldn’t think of it as a laminate, because it feels like a solid, albeit thin, “shell,” but it is. It’s a lot like the Royalex laminate used to build many canoes and whitewater kayaks up till around 2013, when production was discontinued. You can buy even lighter canoes in Kevlar, carbon and various other materials, but…

PUBLIC RAMPS PLACIDA PARK: 6499 Boca Grande Causeway, Placida. Double concrete ramp, fee, ice, toilet, parking. ELDRED’S MARINA: 6301 Boca Grande Causeway, Placida, (941) 697-1431. Extra wide double ramp, fee, parking, bait. BOCA GRANDE FISHING PIER: 5810 Gasparilla Road, Placida. Kayak launch, free parking, safe pier. BOAT RENTALS/BAIT & TACKLE GASPARILLA ISLAND BOAT RENTALS: Inside Placida Park at 6499 Boca Grande Causeway, (941) 505-5657. GLASS BOTTOM BOAT RENTALS: 5810 Gasparilla Rd, Placida, (941) 237-1756. GASPARILLA MARINA: 15001 Gasparilla Rd, Placida, (941) 697-2280. CC’s and DC’s, 21- 24 feet. Tackle, bait, restaurant, boat tours, guides, rentals. ACCOMMODATIONS & DINING GASPARILLA INN & CLUB: 500 Palm Ave, Boca Grande, (800) 996-1913. BOCA GRANDE HOTEL: 5800 Gasparilla Rd, Boca Grande, (941) 964-4443. THE PALMETTO INN: 381 Palm Ave, Boca Grande, (941) 964-0410. JERRY’S…

Today’s engine technology is truly amazing. Motors run longer, faster, and more dependably than ever before. Engine breakdowns that we used to experience at least every half a dozen offshore trips, now we often go a half dozen years without. Be that as it may, as long as men make motors, they are going to break sometimes. Breakdowns we used to experience every half-dozen offshore trips, we now go a half dozen years without. Spinning a prop hub or picking up line (think floating braid here) hopelessly wrapped around a prop are among the biggest reason you may find yourself immobilized. I highly recommend you have a towing service membership, especially if you head offshore on a single engine. I have talked with Sea Tow from 70 miles off Jacksonville,…

LAST YEAR WAS THE WINDIEST winter I’ve ever seen! Or was it? I always cringe to hear what has to be hyperbole because it’s been my experience that anglers are inclined to exaggerate conditions, albeit unconsciously. That said, it really did seem pretty damned hard to find a nice day offshore in the Atlantic off Florida in the winter of 2020-21. And that’s because it was a really windy season, agrees Chris Landsea, Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch chief for the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Fishermen didn’t simply imagine more days with high waves. That wasn’t due to global warming (we’ll come back to that) since in fact the weather was anomalous: “It was the coldest winter in several for Florida,” Landsea says, meaning more frequent and stronger cold…

After summiting the highest peak in Florida, 345-foot Britton Hill at Lakewood Park, it was the logical next step: Find the highest fishing hole. I think I found it. Northern Walton County, in Florida’s Panhandle region, is basically a giant sponge. Gently rolling sandhills soak up some of North America’s most prodigious rainfall, filtering and discharging it in innumerable springs. Trickles seep into cool ponds at higher elevations, and gravity draws the clear water into sand-bottom creeks, Appalachian quartz, that traverse the countryside. The creeks in turn feed rivers like the Shoal River, Yellow River and others, flowing to the Gulf of Mexico. Good fishing in all of those rivers. Ideal for kayaks. The “mountain stream” where I caught a bass on a spinner didn’t have a name—only a pair…

THE GOLDEN SHINER(Notemigonus crysoluecus) is the premier largemouth bass bait at Disney lakes and most all Florida fresh waters. Most tackle shops catering to freshwater anglers sell them and they’re also naturally occurring (wild) in Florida lakes. They’re generally sold by the dozen although at Disney due to quantity usage they buy them by the pound. “In tank studies, bass preferred soft-rayed fin forage items such as threadfin shad and golden shiners,” FWC biologist Jim Sweatman stated, adding that due to the abundance of bluegill they’re more often found in a bass’s stomach than shiners. Bluegill and other panfish can be bass baits too if used by the angler who caught them. That said, no self-respecting bass will pass up a hooked shiner inhibited in movement. Adult shiners average four…

When it comes down to it, the fishing hook is the fundamental and most necessary piece of equipment we use when fishing. With no hook, the chances of catching a fish pretty much vanish. There are hundreds of variations of fishing hooks, each designed with specific needs in mind, but even within the many kinds of hooks available to anglers, there are trends that distinguish different preferred uses of hooks. For example, many anglers in Florida have become reliant on circle hooks for many applications. Sometimes these trends are influenced by local regulations, like Florida’s requirement that anyone fishing for any species of reef fish in Gulf and most Atlantic waters must use non-stainless steel circle hooks when fishing with natural bait. Other times, the trends are just local preferences.…

I have always felt that February in South Florida was a transition month. This is when our weather patterns go from one extreme to another, often changing the fishing that was happening a month before. February often ushers in light north and northwest winds and calm nearshore waters, not something that you might expect in midwinter. Temperatures are cool but not cold and the fishing this month becomes a bit more challenging. Then you get into March and again things change from mild to blustery. My first word of advice is to take advantage of what South Florida has to offer this month. The first thing might be to attend the Miami International Boat Show that returns to the Miami Beach Convention Center February 16-20. The show will feature hundreds…

The winter sheepshead spawn is definitely “on” this month. Shoals of these zebra-striped fish can be found clustered around docks, rocks and bridge pilings throughout the region, and they’re hungry. This is almost exclusively a live bait fishery with fiddler crabs, sand fleas, and shrimp taking the most fish, though there are a few secretive anglers who score well with tubeworms or clam strips. There are locally famous sheepshead producing spots including the Placida railroad trestle and the Boca Grande phosphate dock reef that are fished daily by multiple boats, but there are fish on almost every dock along the ICW. And sheepshead are caught miles inland from the Gulf, too. The fishing pier at El Jobean sees many a sheepshead bouncing on its deck and the canals in Port…

If the weather is mild and we have a fishable ocean, look for schools of pogies, threadfins and other baits to be pulling cobia around the reefs off Ponce Inlet and Port Canaveral. Warm winters in the past have made Canaveral and its buoy line along the ship’s channel “cobia central.” When the inshore water temperature reaches that magical 68-degree mark, cobia should be following manta rays or else free-swimming off the beaches between the tip of Cape Canaveral and Sebastian Inlet. Balmy conditions also have a tendency for pulling bigger kingfish inshore along the beaches around Playalinda Beach and to points south like the Canaveral Bight, Cocoa Beach and Patrick. At the same time, moderate weather would hold the smaller kings along Pelican Flats out of Canaveral. Warm water…

February often gets a bad rap, fishing-wise. Granted, it can be cold and it’s not a month for hanging out at the beach in a Speedo. But when you consider all the fishing possibilities, it can actually be a great time to be on the water. Although spring seems only a future possibility, some fish are already responding to their reproductive demands. Largemouth bass, stripers, crappie and white bass are a few that usually change their behavior sometime in February. While there are numerous changes that fish react to, such as the amount of daylight, barometric pressure, rainfall and water flow, temperature is usually one of the main ones. Quite often in late February, if the water temperature in the Ochlockonee River reaches 58 degrees, white bass travel from Lake…

Last issue, we took you to Ragged Island, Bahamas, which is some 100 miles south of the Exumas. While that might seem like the end of the earth to most of us, it isn’t even the end of the Bahamas. That distinction belongs to the Inagua Islands, another 120 miles southeast. “On a clear day, you can see the mountains in Cuba across the Bahamas Channel,” said Vince Tobia of Cattaraugus Creek Outfitters. Tobia’s Inagua Island outfitting service is a true DIY outfit. You’d likely be renting a cabin at their lodge, which comes with a 4WD truck. There are staff to make sure you are fed and have clean bedding and whatnot, but for the most part you’ll be taking yourself fishing, armed with info from Tobia. “There is…

Back in 2011, my New Year’s resolution was to complete the Florida black bass slam. That year, I was fortunate enough to have the time while still working to travel and not only catch all of our state’s black bass species (Florida largemouth, shoal, Suwannee, and spotted/Choctaw*), but added a bonus peacock bass as well. All were all caught with artificial lures by simply walking the bank, after research revealed locations for access where they lived. Of those catches, my favorite was the shoal bass. It has such a small range, only found in North Florida’s Chipola River. Water levels in the river that year were very low. The Chipola looked incredible: emerald green, clear and pristine. When I got the bite, I was hoping it was the right species,…

Fish or cut bait. Help or don’t help. There’s a clear line. If you cross it and become part of this effort to bring back a fishery, you’re in one boat. If you don’t, and do nothing, expecting someone else to do it, you’re in another boat. A fishless boat. Stay out of the fishless boat. Sign the Save The Mahi petition, scan the QR code below, lift a finger, it takes less than two minutes. If you’ve already signed the petition, send an email to someone from NOAA and tell them how you feel about the dolphin fishery. Now is the time. Ms. Janet Coit, Assistant Administrator, NOAA Fisheries, laid out where we stand right now. “The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council has transmitted Amendment 10 to NOAA’s National…

PENN CARNAGE III RODS Florida Sportsman editors are field testing the new PENN Carnage III Inshore rods and reporting favorable results. The rods feature SLC2 construction, which PENN describes as an inner spiral carbon wrap layer with outer layers of longitudinal carbon fibers. That translates into impressive strength-to-weight ratio. But perhaps more significantly, PENN designers have got the actions and line-lure weight ratings of this rod series right. This isn’t just a cosmetic update of second-gen Carnage rods—it’s a total revision with a careful eye on the spectrum of saltwater techniques. For example: The lightest of the Inshore series, a 7-footer rated for 6- to 12-pound mono or 10- to 15-pound braid (you’ll want 10-pound braid), loads easily under the weight of a ¼-ounce jig—and the reserve energy in the…

Shopping for a turkey hunting vest can be rather confusing. There are so many choices with such a wide range of prices. A new turkey hunting vest can cost anywhere from $20 to $300. Before shopping for a vest, consider these features. NUMBER OF POCKETS If you are a run-and-gun type of hunter who carries a small number of calls, a small, waist-style vest with a limited number of pockets might be a light option for packing up and moving to a gobbling turkey. Carrying a wide variety of calls and gear requires a vest with many pockets, and that will add weight to a vest. TYPES OF CALLS CARRIED Different types of turkey calls require specialized pockets which will hold each type of call securely and, more importantly, silently.…

IN 1926, THE U.S. WAR DEPARTMENT filed an application to build a pier in Clearwater Beach and did so in 1937 when the winds of war stirred. Known as the Municipal Pier, it became obsolete—likely victim of wood construction. A new pier was needed that could better withstand the ravages of winds and tide. On June 28, 1962, such occurred. Made of concrete with rebar reinforcements, Pier 60 came into being. Structural maintenance occurred in 1994. “Replacement of pilings became necessary because the concrete was spalling due to the rebar rusting,” said Gary Johnson, who at that time served as Clearwater’s Engineering Project Coordinator. “That’s very common in reinforced concrete structures over saltwater.” Renovations took place in 2018 as well. Operated by the City of Clearwater, it’s become a premier…

Coldest region of Florida? No doubt somewhere on the Florida/Alabama state line, in the northwesternmost corner of the state. Climate records we have available are mostly from the small cities along Interstate 10, about 15 miles south of the border. Among them, Crestview stands out on NOAA U.S. Climate Normals. Wikipedia indicates Crestview was once known as the “Ice Box of Florida.” Indeed, in earlier years the town had a monthly average low temp below 40 degrees Fahrenheit for three months of the year. In more recent times, there’s been a warming trend, as shown in the table here. What was the coldest temperature ever recorded in Florida? Most sources indicate 2 degrees below zero, recorded in Tallahassee on February 13, 1899. That was during the “Great Arctic Outbreak.” If…

FRIGID BLAST! Blair Wickstrom, with fish, and Mike Carney bundled up against the cold and enjoyed some good winter snook fishing on jigs and light tackle. Snook reopens on Florida's Atlantic coast February 1. CATCH MORE ONLINE Fish and hunt smarter and more efficiently. Check our daily "feed" to get on the best bets and top seasonal picks for all regions of Florida. And be sure to share your pictures and stories with us! 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 to 1 MB in jpeg format. For smartphone photos, email the Actual Size—highest resolution. Images must not have appeared or been submitted elsewhere. Send…

This time of year, it’s about dealing with weekly cold fronts and high winds, which have adverse effects on water temperatures and clarity. In addition, due to the orientation of the region spanning west to east, prevailing northerly winds this time of year can also affect tides. Northerly winds can hold up an incoming tide and also accelerate an outgoing tide, so while you should always be conscious of what the tide tables state, you should pay extra attention to wind direction and velocity this time of year. Fortunately, black drum, sheepshead and trout are three species mostly unaffected by the volatility of February weather. The sheepshead may be the tastiest of the three and these striped bandits spawn February through April in our region. They’re quite hungry this month…

Covering over 400 square miles, Tampa Bay is the largest estuary in Florida. Not only will you find juvenile fish, but also the big girls that produce them. You’ll find rivers and creeks that feed into the bay, mixing fresh with saltwater, making a brackish habit that many fish call home at different times of the year. In a cold winter, a good portion of the region’s snook population are in rivers and creeks from the Weeki Wachee River down to Sarasota’s Phillippi Creek that empties into Roberts Bay. Spring-fed creeks and rivers are the keys to the survival of these fish during the cold of winter. Warmer-than-average winters over the past several years have triggered migration of these fish farther north where they survive in the springs. The closed…

When I am elected president, there will be no February. Lots of Mays and Octobers but no February. Be that as it may, we do still have to contend with February, so let’s focus on what we can catch, because the reality is, there’s no such month as a bad month to fish in Northeast Florida. The freshwater fishermen are ecstatic to see February get here. There’s no better time to catch the bass of a lifetime, and just about all the trophy bass hunters have been releasing all their giants for years. Florida’s TrophyCatch program has been releasing “Hall of Fame” bass for many years now, and eventually the magic “twenty-pound bass” will come out of Florida waters. If I had to make a bet, it’ll be Kingsley Lake.…

Most of the fishing I will be doing this month is going to be inshore. Redfish, speckled trout, sheepshead and black drum are my targeted species and there are several ways to target them. Weather is going to play a huge role, and I pay close attention to wind, tides and temperatures. Redfish are the most reliable fish this month. Both bulls and slots can be caught year-round but in February, I prefer to chase the big over-slot fish. You can find schools of redfish roaming the beach down the entire coastline of the Panhandle right now and it is one of the best times to target them. A good north wind from a cold front will flatten the surf and make for ideal conditions to sight fish these reds…

It’s in the water—their love for the water, that is! Captain Mike Cyr, father of Jared and Brandon Cyr, is a third-generation fisherman in the Florida Keys. His passion for the water is remarkable and after decades of guiding, if he gets a day off and the weather is fair, you can guarantee he is out there fly fishing and often by himself. Not to sound cliche, but the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Captains Jared and Brandon both share the love and passion for the water and the very special place they were born and raised in. The Cyr’s are in the highest echelon in the fly fishing world, often winning some of the most prestigious fly fishing tournaments. They are sponsored by some of the most…

Gasparilla Sound, sandwiched between Gasparilla Island to the west and Cape Haze to the east, was named after the Spanish pirate captain Jose Gaspar, who terrorized Florida’s southwest coast in the 18th century.* According to legend, Captain Gaspar amassed a fortune in gold and silver from the ships he seized, and he hid the treasure somewhere on Gasparilla Island, where it has never been found. The real treasure, however, is the Sound’s outstanding fishery, owing to some of Southwest Florida’s healthier seagrass beds, thanks to careful monitoring and restoration efforts of the Gasparilla Sound-Charlotte Harbor Aquatic Preserve. On weekends the Sound resembles a saltwater version of Grand Central Station, with a steady stream of Intracoastal Waterway boat traffic destined for Charlotte Harbor, Pine Island Sound, Lemon Bay, Gasparilla Pass and…

FROM JIMBO AND RICK THOMAS: 1 Instead of the commonly used small balloon on kite spar, used to keep it afloat if it hits the drink, try a small section of pool noodle. No need to blow ‘em up each time; put them on and leave them on your kites. 2 Keep clip tension tight enough so lines don’t pop out unexpectedly or when you’re shaking off seaweed. 3 Don’t hesitate to put on thin (No. 5 stainless) steel bite leader when kings or wahoo are about unless you’re after blackfin. Other than tuna (and not always tuna), other pelagics aren’t put off by thin wire (and of course most of your leader will be above the surface, anyway). 4 Avoid long dropbacks after a strike; too many anglers drop…

February is about the coldest of the windy months and is known for cancelling fishing trips. Having an open mind goes a long way. Often it seems that the cold fronts time their arrivals just in time for the weekends, in order to ruin everyone’s plans. If the conditions are fair, February has a lot to offer. Lots of trout in the basins throughout the Keys that can be accessed when reef fishing offshore is out of the question. Not an amazing fight, but they will sear up just fine in the skillet, and most importantly, the kids will have a riot. Depending on the boat size and wind direction, you may be able to reach the shallow rock piles that litter the Atlantic side of the island archipelago. The…

The piers throughout our region, such as Juno or Lake Worth offer easy access to anybody wanting to catch a plethora of species this month. The southerly pompano migration is in full swing and these piers are excellent intercepting points. No need for surf rods here, because you can walk past the outside bar on the pier. I like to cast a ½-ounce goofy jig tipped with a sand flea or tidbit of shrimp for these fish. A double hook pompano rig with these baits or an artificial option like Fishgum will also do the trick. Bag limit is six fish, with an 11-inch minimum fork length. Croaker and whiting will also be in the neighborhood and both are apt to eat your offering. Fill a cooler with these three…

Sheepshead fishing isn’t for everyone. It’s often frowned upon by anglers who prefer artificial baits or those who firmly believe in catch-and-release. And it’s not really suited to anglers with smaller boats who regularly fish right along the Big Bend coast over shallow grass flats. Toothy sheepshead rarely respond to artificial bait and are best considered a “nearshore-offshore” species particularly fond of water that’s over 30 feet deep and over reefs and rocks. Cold weather and cool waters bring on the yearly spawn of sheepshead. Big females, some in the 6- to 8-pound range, gather around structure where they’re “attended to” by smaller males. That structure can be in the form of natural or artificial reefs, springs or even channel markers or pilings. Depending on the depth and the water…