Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2022 i Florida Sportsman

Ten minutes into the film I noticed something familiar about a pier over a lagoon. Sure enough! It’s no surprise to recognize Florida in the movies. Quite often, in fact, our own fishing spots are featured. Recall the Seven Mile Bridge chase in True Lies (1994), Matheson Hammock in There’s Something About Mary (1998), the Destin beaches in Jaws II (1978). Heck, Elvis himself went fishin' on Bird Creek Bridge near Yankeetown, in Follow that Dream (1961). Rarely, though, do you encounter a film which not only portrays a recognizable fishing hole, but accurately captures our state in all its quirky glory. Flipping through the guide channel recently, I clicked on Empire of the Ants (1977). The title was irresistible. Plus, an early forties Joan Collins struck me as worthwhile…

First, we always encourage anglers to purchase fishing licenses whether lawfully required or not. The funds go to support fisheries enhancement, lake management, law enforcement and important programs like youth outreach. That said, there are a few exemptions when it comes to licenses, and “canepoles” happen to fall under one of them. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission: Florida residents fishing with natural bait, using poles or lines that are not equipped with a fishing-line-retrieval mechanism, and fishing for noncommercial purposes in their home county (does not include fish management areas) are exempt from needing a freshwater fishing license. See GoOutdoorsFlorida. com for complete details on licenses, or call 888-FISH-FLORIDA.…

HOURS: 24 hours a day, 365 days a year FEES: $4 per vehicle, plus $4 per adult BAIT & FOOD: Concession and restaurant on the north fishing pier. Tackle stores on both piers. DIRECTIONS: The Skyway State Fishing Pier is located in three counties on Tampa Bay. A unique fishing location between Bradenton and St. Petersburg with easy access off I-275. PIER CONTACT INFO NORTH PIER: 727-865-0668 SOUTH PIER: 941-729-0117 EMAIL: skywaypiers@wildblue.net NO FISHING LICENSE REQUIRED: When you are fishing the north or south Skyway Fishing Piers, you do not need a fishing license. However, if you’re fishing any waterway leading up to the Skyway piers and you’re younger than 65 you will need a Florida resident or non-resident fishing license. There isn’t room to turn around RVs, so they…

LEVELING UP YOUR FISHING GEAR, giving you some ability to bring catches to the boat before the predators zoom in, is sometimes a feasible choice. But then again, the opposite approach sometimes wins the game. Two examples: I enjoy fishing for Spanish mackerel in winter and spring along shallow (15 to 20 foot) reefs off of Hobe Sound in Southeast Florida. My lure of choice is a Gulfstream or Tsunami Glass Minnow jig in ½ ounce. These jigs cast far on the light rods that I’ve long favored—7 to 7 ½-foot sticks rated for ¼- to 5/8-ounce lures, carrying 2500 or 3000-class reels spooled to the lip with 10-pound braided line. It’s fun feeling the pulse of the rod and hearing the whirr as line is pulled off the reel,…

ON THE GAG BITE OFF CRYSTAL RIVER Gag grouper season opens in the Gulf of Mexico June 1. Gulf bag limit is 2 per person (counts toward 4-grouper aggregate) and mininum size is 24 inches total length. Don't forget to sign up for the Gulf Reef Fish Survey, which is free and helps enable better management. See MyFWC.com for more. 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…

It’s Go Time It's 6 a.m. and you're swatting no-see-um’s at the boat ramp, rushing the process that 3 months ago had you sluggish and sipping on a hot beverage as you slide the skiff off the trailer. That's June in the 10,000 islands. Pick up the pace and a can of bug spray! June is one of my favorite months. The flat calm mornings are almost illegal for tarpon; the slightest flick of a fin on the surface gives way to the prize. Snook are inhabiting most beaches and open island faces. Redfish are where the food is, trout are on the deeper high-flow edges and deeper grass beds. Call me lame but I love a mean trout bite on patchy grass bottom. Right out front of the gateway…

Tidal Tactics Heading offshore, anglers can target gag grouper again with the June 1 season opener. Some of the largest gags will be caught beyond 100 feet of water, but for those with the knowledge, keeper gags can be caught while trolling big jigs with curly tail trailers on downriggers for precise depth fishing. St. Petersburg’s Vance Tice is a master at this technique and knows the cracks and crevices of Tampa Bay. He fishes the ship’s channel out of Tampa Bay toward Egmont Key where the rocky ledges of the channel have been carved out of limestone to allow shipping traffic inside the bay. Depths just off Egmont reach 90 feet on the northern tip, but running inside the bay 50 feet or so will be the norm. The…

Travis Anderson, of Cocoa Beach, with a big jack crevalle caught in 80 feet of water off of Sebastian Inlet. Dr. Matthew Campbell ran the coincidentally named 27-foot Crevalle bay boat, and Chad Miker assisted in landing the giant with the net. Travis shares, “Together we make up a cardiac surgical team at Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne. We all took the day off to go fishing together! Dr. Campbell is a cardiothoracic surgeon, Chad is a RNFA and I am a perfusionist (CCP).”…

Sweet Summertime Action on the Panhandle Red snapper season opens this month in state and federal waters, a favorite among anglers both local and visiting. Other popular near-shore species this month are gag grouper, king mackerel and mangrove snapper. Meanwhile, the offshore bite is great for wahoo, mahi, marlin and swordfish. Inshore fishing could get tricky on the hotter days but if you have a game plan going in, you can stay on the fish all day! Tarpon will also be gracing the beaches with their presence this month in numbers down the entire coast. Red snapper are easy to catch, put up a great fight, and are delicious table fare. Most people with coordinates and a boat can catch a red snapper, but have you ever been able to…

Bottom Fishing and Trolling Both Excellent in Bahamas June is my favorite month to fish in the Bahamas. There are of course bonefish (as is the case all year), and this happens to be peak permit season. But June is the time to bust out the jigging rods to fish the bottom, or troll for tunas, mahi and other monsters. We’re smack in the middle of prime snapper/ grouper season. Unless you are targeting specific deep-drop species, you should focus on the 150- to 300-foot depth range. You can find the right depth right outside West End, Grand Bahama, but you’re likely to find more fish if you are willing to head north, south or southeast after you check in. Which way you go should depend upon the wind and…

If ever there was the need for the sleeping giant, you, the recreational angler, to wake from your advocacy slumber, it is now. That is if you care about catching dolphin (mahi mahi) in the future. Our Save The Mahi petition effort, calls and letters didn’t stop NOAA and the National Marine Fisheries from approving South Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s (SAFMC) Amendment 10, which will do extraordinarily little to stop the decline of the fishery, but we did earn another chance to make our case. The SAFMC has scheduled a public scoping meeting at their June Key West meeting this summer to see if there is public support for adding additional conservation measures for mahi. This is our chance. Because of the recreational angler's outcry over the last several months,…

Fishing rod manufacturers are recognizing the growing population of kayak-fishing enthusiasts and the specialized needs of those anglers. One manufacturer offering a rod well suited to kayak anglers is Fenwick. (The comments that follow offer lots of advice for anyone looking at any rod manufacturer’s choices.) Fenwick offers a model in each of its Elite Inshore Spinning series and Elite Inshore Casting series that, according to the manufacturer’s “rod guru,” Justin Poe, is pretty much perfect for kayak anglers. If you search for “kayak rods” on the Fenwick site (one of many brands at www.purefishing.com), as I did, you’ll come up snake eyes. That’s because Fenwick doesn’t want buyers to pigeonhole these rods as only for kayak fishing; they can also be a good choice for wade fishing and for…

Considering the company they keep, hogfish are a real prize. That’s because these large wrasses consort with small porgies and grunts. For each hogfish an angler might catch, he often has to crank up and toss back any number of little grunts and porgies. The fact that hogfish enthusiasts eagerly thread shrimp onto hook after hook to wade through so many unwanted bait stealers offers confirmation of how valued hog-fish are. The reason isn’t an amazing fighting ability or great size; hogfish have neither of those attributes. Rather, hogfish are simply one of the finest-eating species the Gulf of Mexico has to offer. Their sweet, white meat is hard to beat. Generally, hogfish aren’t a species one finds in great concentrations. On the other hand, some days reward handsomely. “I’ve…

I watched as an 80-pound tarpon rolled in front of the boat and Capt. Chris Holleman from Blue Cyclone Inland Fishing Adventures handed me a spinning rod. I stared at the lure on the end of my line and was bewildered. I thought to myself, “Did Captain Chris expect me to catch a largemouth bass with such a lure? Is he crazy? We are tarpon fishing!” I cast my Texas-rigged 12-inch plastic worm towards the ripples of the rolling fish. Nothing happened. I thought to myself that I would follow my guide’s recommendations first before trying some “real tarpon lures” that I brought along for my charter. I fired off my fourth cast. My mind started to wander about better lure options when the rod was almost yanked from my…

There was a time not so long ago when the local bait and tackle shop was the functional nerve center for the fisherman. It wasn’t just where you bought a new rod or stocked up on ice and bait for the day, it was where you connected with like-minded folks, a place where you could walk through the door and step simultaneously into past and present. Today, many of us are emerging from the fog of the internet and “big box” lifestyle to reclaim our space at the counter. So, too, are new anglers discovering the value of personal connections, local intel and access to quality, locally rel evant gear. Florida Sportman’s staff of Field Editors profile some of these spots, with more in the months to come.…

Slam Season The hustle of tourist season has come and gone, but the fishing season is in full swing. Whether you like to go deep, shallow or fish the reefs in between, June fishing is second to none in my book. Also, if you are visiting from out of town, you can expect lower hotel fares and also most eateries can take you without a reservation. In the shallows, the sought-after flats grand slam made up by catching a tarpon, permit and a bonefish all in one day can be obtained! The tarpon worm hatch just happened on the full moon of May, but some of the worms are often a month late and the tarpon will stick around to have another shot at them. Soon after, some of the…

The Month to Make It Happen June offers a nice mixed bag of fish for the offshore angler this month before we really roll into the summertime lull, where west winds and upwellings and no current can make fishing tough. Regional tournaments show just what can be caught in the blue water this month. West Palm Beach Fishing Club (westpalmbeachfishingclub. com) will be hosting the 19th annual Palm Beach County KDW Classic out of Riviera Beach Marina on June 4. This is a one-day tournament, with cash payouts for the top 10 kingfish, dolphin and wahoo, plus cash prizes for the top ten junior anglers. A great, family-friendly event put on by one of the oldest fishing clubs in the country. To the south, Bluewater Movements Inc. (bluewatermovements.com) will be…

Cedar Key’s Grasses When the average person thinks of Cedar Key, they think of restaurants, art galleries and quaint lodging. But, to anglers, Cedar Key means more. It means some great inshore fishing. Much of the city is located on Way Key, a good place to start your trip to some of the lush grass flats that make up the southern reaches of the Big Bend Seagrasses Aquatic Preserve. Established in 1985, the Preserve spans more than 900,000 acres and over 150 miles of coastline. It’s Florida’s largest aquatic preserve, and one of the most pristine places, in the state. The Cedar Keys jut into the Gulf of Mexico to the south and west, and there’s a broad expanse of water fed by the Waccasassa and Withlacoochee rivers to the…

Peak Trolling Season, Plus Hot Bites Along the Beach Why, oh why, do the 28 days of February last forever, while the 30 days of June go by in a week? When I’m president we’ll have no February or March, and we’ll have two Mays and Junes. If you’re a bluewater fisherman there’s not a day to waste. The first of June is the peak of your trolling season, and generally speaking the end of the month is time to put the outriggers away until fall, unless you love catching barracuda. June generally starts out with the best mahi fishing we see all year. The fish often move inshore of the break, and can be found in the 21 fathom area. There are still wahoo and a few tuna around,…

During last year’s red snapper season, Capt. Gabrielle Barnes shared this photo of angler Sean Harris with a beautiful red snapper caught in 70 feet of water using a live cigar minnow. “This year seems to be ‘sharkier’ than previous years which has made red snapper season tougher than normal. If sharks are stealing your fish, move up to heavier tackle to see if you can crank them in faster,” Barnes advised. “If that doesn’t work, consider moving spots to try to avoid feeding them all of your fish.”…

All you need is a long, slender length of bamboo cane, a hook, line, sinker, and float. The bamboo poles I use have been in constant service for over 70 years. If you can't buy a good one you should have no trouble finding someone with a stand of cane growing on his property that will let you cut a suitable slim one about 10 feet long and 1 inch wide at the base with a limber end. Since we are after bluegill and other bream primarily, you can use 6-pound test monofilament line but that is not mandatory. Anything up to 20-pound test monofilament will also work just fine. The biggest thing to remember is to use a small hook because bluegills have small mouths. A No. 8, 10…

MATERIALS 1-foot 2-inch schedule 40 PVC pipe PVC cement or similar 2-inch PVC socket cap 2-inch PVC threaded FPT cap 2-inch PVC hub with threaded male reducer 1 3/8 inch X 1 inch stainless eyebolt with washer and lock nut STEPS First rough up the outside of the PVC tube at both ends with sandpaper. Apply cement around the roughed-up end of the pipe and fit on the socket cap. Apply cement to opposite end and fit on the PVC hub. Drill a hole through the center of FTP cap and insert the eyebolt. Add the washer, and lock nut and tighten. Drill plenty of holes in the PVC tube. Choose a drill bit that makes quarter-to half-inch holes if chumming with shrimp, fleas, cut clam or crushed crab. Tie…

Not Calm Below the Surface! Over the offshore reefs and wrecks, mutton snappers and black, gag and red groupers are waiting for a tasty offering to be well presented. Over the grassy bottom near shore and in our channels leading to the ocean, hogfish will be available. The hogfish season opens this month. Snook season closed but can be targeted for catch and release, big tarpon are still in the area, seatrout are ending their spawning season and bonefish and permit can easily be seen tailing over the shallow flats of South Bay. Offshore fishermen will be targeting blackfin tuna first thing in the morning, hoping to take advantage of the low light conditions at daybreak. Blackfin tuna have big eyes and great sight. Once the sun starts to shine…

Everything You Could Want! Fantastic fishing should be the June motto. The inshore and back bays will produce snook, redfish, and trout. Nearshore will be a tarpon, permit and cobia gig. Finally, those taking the long runs offshore will have grouper, snappers, tuna and more. June typically begins our summer rains that will occur sometimes in the early morning hours, but certainly in the late afternoons from around three to six p.m. If you’re in this area having a good lightning app on your phone is now a must. Our lower tides will now move from the morning hours, to the late afternoons and evenings, so get used to that pattern for about the next five months. Snook are in their spawn now, so you will find them moving along…

Great Fishing On Both Sides of the Stream For a full day of offshore adventure for big game, now’s the time to fuel up and head for the “other side” for yellowfins, wahoo and big bull dolphin. For anglers out of Ponce, Canaveral and Sebastian, the “other side” is the fish-rich blue water east of the Gulf Stream. To make this 90- to 120-mile marathon, and back to port by dark, involves an early start and a fast boat. Some with sleeping berths plan overnight trips. It is specialized fishing involving good radar systems that will pick up flocks of birds marking the schools of tuna. A lot of running can be involved. Accurate water temperature gauges and satellite SST imagery are necessary to determine surface water degree changes that…

Tackle Up for Tarpon, Cobia and Kings June is the best of the summer. It has those really warm days but it isn’t brutal. It’s also the time to dust off the stout fishing tackle. Cobia don’t fool around. I think of them as the diesel trucks of the fish world. They aren’t known for their dramatic jumps or their blazing speed. But for sheer determined power they are remarkable. They also grow large, to over 100 pounds. Put both together and you have a real tackle buster. Boating a green cobia can rearrange a boat interior quickly, breaking anything that resists moving out of the way. Cobia gather in schools and cruise along beaches, and it’s here where they can be spotted by fishermen with casting jigs. The barrier…

It was youth turkey hunt weekend, in March, and I was hunting with my daughter, Savannah, in western Indian River County. I was grateful to have the time to take her into the woods; trips like this make us proud, as parents, and I know that for young people, hunting is a great way to develop character and life skills. She’d been hunting with me before, but hadn’t quite had the confidence to pull the trigger. Now she’s 10, and I’d given her a .410 Stevens Model 301, with the TSS loads. It’s a beautiful gun. We set up in a blind built from cut palmetto fronds, and placed our Avion-X jake and breeder hen decoys. We heard gobbling everywhere, so we sat there patiently. I made some calling with…