Florida Sportsman is the complete fishing magazine for Florida and the Tropics. Devoted to fishing, boating, and outdoor activities in the Sunshine State, Florida Sportsman is the authoritative source for Florida's most active fishermen.
SELECT CONTENT AVAILABLE NOW ON OUR DIGITAL CHANNELS WEBSITE WWW.FLORIDASPORTSMAN.COM IF THEY ARE TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY —BY MIKE CONNER Catch a fish you don’t plan to eat? You should do everything in your power to increase its chances of survival once released. There’s more to it than just “throwing it back.” If you want to be a better angler, this magazine article originally from 2020 is one digital “release” you don’t want to skip on. DIGITAL WEB EXCLUSIVE FIVE INCREDIBLE KAYAK CATCHES —BY DOUG OLANDER As more anglers immerse themselves in this form of fishing and kayaks and related gear improve, some ‘yak enthusiasts are pushing the limits of what’s possible. In this article from Doug Olander, we explore the exhilarating details of five catches that reveal just…
If you’re among the 800 or so folks daily moving to Florida in recent years, you may have wondered about this “trout fishing.” It’s perhaps not as frown-inducing as “dolphin fishing,” but certainly open to some “whuh?” moments. What we’re talking about here is not a coldwater salmonid, but rather the totally unrelated saltwater drum, spotted seatrout, Cynoscion nebulosus. (Confession: When I just typed that, my brain erroneously auto-corrected to C. regalis—scientific name for weakfish, another saltwater trout-drum. Some, but not many of those in Florida.) Once you get the ID squared away, and understand that “speck” may be used by some Floridians to denote spotted seatrout or black crappie, friend, your confusion is just beginning. Florida now has five regional sub-management zones for spotted seatrout. Where I live, in…
On my boat, I refuse to remove a fish from the water for photos if we don’t intend to kill for consumption,” exclaimed Capt. George LaBonte, Florida Sportsman Boating Editor and author of Sportsman’s Best: Sailfish. George then went one step further addressing us at the magazine: “You need to stop promoting the mishandling of any fish for the sake of an Instagram moment or 15 minutes of fame on any social media or otherwise by publishing photos of people in the water hugging goliath grouper or tarpon or cockpit hero shots of billfish for the sake of a few likes or shares.” George concluded with one last bit of advice: “We need to encourage people to respect the lives of all wildlife regardless of whether you intend to harvest…
Back when I first walked the boards—the late 1950s—the City of Deerfield’s International Fishing Pier, like most of that era, was a wooden structure. What I remember most from my initial visit? A sign proclaiming: “For better fishin’, try spinnin’.” I’d never doubted it. Over the years I’ve caught blues and Spanish, sharks and cobia—along with kingfish, bonitos and other whatnot. Saw many changes, too. First, a hurricane shortened the original structure. The “stub,” as we called it, gave way to a full-length concrete replacement, around about my senior year of high school, 1965. Later still, an imposing new structure was to become the pier’s final quintessence. I remember meeting John Gavin back in my college days. Like others of the “Deerfield Crowd,” he kept in touch with many of…
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Strong current nixed our grouper fishing and we broke out our emergency supply of ballyhoo and began trolling. I had a livewell full of sardines we'd planned to use for grouper, but the sardines weren't big enough to troll, no matter how hard I tried to slow down my sportfish. While we were finishing off a big blackfin, my mate Josh and I decided to cast one of the sardines on a spinning rod. It had barely touched the water when a 20-pound mahi took to the sky after swallowing the sardine. Now, it has always been standard policy for us to hold our speed when we get the first tuna on, but if we didn’t get a strike right away, we were ending up with our fish a mile…
