WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FISH?

FLOUNDER

Flounder are an accidental catch for most Southwest Florida anglers, but you can target them if you know how. Remember that these flatfish live on the bottom, so the first key is to fish — drum roll, please — along the bottom. They will lie in the sand mostly buried, facing into the current. Flounder like open sand or mud near cover, so fishing around patchy grass, oysters or even pilings can be productive. They also like dropoffs, so boat channels and passes are often hotspots. Fluke rigs used along the Atlantic seaboard work great for our flounder. These usually consist of a spinner blade trailed by a single hook, which can be baited with a strip of fish belly, a live or dead shrimp, a small baitfish (mud minnows are ideal, if you can catch them) or even a soft plastic lure. You can also use any of these on a simple jighead. Favored soft plastic colors are orange and pink; electric chicken can be truly superior. Whatever you’re fishing, drag or drag-hop it across the bottom in a likely spot. When you feel the bait hang up, that’s often a flounder. Wait five or 10 seconds, then tug gently. If you feel a tug back, set that hook. Flounder fight harder than you’d expect, so be ready for a tussle.

Chilly again? Yup. But remember, fish aren’t bears — they can’t hibernate, so they still have to eat. You have two good options: First, use bait that sits still and puts out scent. Fish can approach slowly and the smell will entice them to do so. This method requires patience. When you’re soaking a chunk of cut bait or dead shrimp, moving it defeats the purpose. Let it sit for at least 3 to 5 minutes before you pick it up. Second, target fish that are more at home in cold water. Sure, there are plenty of trout and sheepshead around, but everyone’s fishing for them. How about a little flounder action? Flounder like small fish, and the whitebait are all but gone. A dip net is handy for catching mud minnows or mollies on the flats or along a muddy shoreline. You can get pre-made flounder rigs that include colored beads and spinner blades. These are more popular up north, but they work like a charm on Florida flounder. Put a minnow or a strip of fish belly on the hook and drag it across the bottom. The edges of channels and passes are good, as are sandy patches near rocky bottom.

GROUPER, GAG

A few years ago, it was unusual for anglers to troll deep-running lipped plugs for gag grouper. It was sort of a secret method — a way of targeting mostly keeper gags while avoiding the runts and all the other hungry mouths on the reefs. Clearly, the secret is now out. But that doesn’t mean dropping a big live bait down to the bottom won’t still work. In fact, with so many fishermen trolling plugs, the grouper will soon become less inclined to hit them. Gags are bold predators and will run a good ways from the protection of their hole to snag a meal, but some are bolder than others. As anglers pick off the ones that are most willing to chase supper, the ones that remain are more likely to stay close to home. That’s why a smart fisherman doesn’t restrict himself to trolling. When you get a hit, mark the spot. You don’t need to investigate right away. You’re compiling a list of spots to come back and check later — maybe with a frisky grunt as your offering.

GROUPER, RED

One of the most-wanted fish in the Gulf of Mexico is the red grouper. It’s amazing how many anglers target grouper, ignoring the many other better-eating species that share the reefs, but whatever — you wanna catch ‘em, we’re here to help. This is one of those fish for which “where” is more important than “how.” Red grouper demand structure of some sort. The absolute best type of structure for them is Swiss-cheese bottom, a type of eroded limestone that is honeycombed with small pockets and tunnels. This is low-profile stuff and hard to see on a bottom machine. Get out to about 100 feet of water and drift with baits dragging the bottom until you catch a grouper. Mark the spot, then see if it holds more. If it does, that’s a keeper. Don’t share those numbers; they’re pure gold. Note what the bottom looks like on your screen, then drift around looking for more of that. To make catching easy, fish a high-low rig baited with squid, frozen sardines, any cut fish or — my personal favorite — raw chicken drumsticks. Don’t know how to tie a high-low? I can show you.

KINGFISH

When water temperatures in the nearshore Gulf are in the mid-70s to upper 60s, there are probably king mackerel around. While these fish can be caught a number of ways, trolling is perhaps the most effective. The largest concentrations of kings are usually found around reefs and wrecks in 30 to 100 feet of water. Trolling around these locations can result in fast and furious action, but first you have to determine what depth the kings are feeding. Sometimes they focus on the surface. When this is the case, a cedar plug or unweighted spoon can be highly effective. If they’re feeding a bit deeper, you can add a trolling weight or planer to your spoon, or go to a lipped plug. To go deeper still, you might need to bump up the size of your planer or the plug’s lip. You can easily troll baits as deep as 40 feet. Beyond that, you’ll probably be better off with vertical jigs, which can fished all the way to the bottom. Determining what depth to fish is a matter of trial and error. Generally, kings feed best from 10 to 25 feet down, but there are times when a deeper or shallower bait is far more productive. Never be afraid to experiment. Also, no matter what lure you use, a short 6- to 12-inch piece of No. 9 single-strand wire leader is a really good idea with kings.

MACKEREL

Mackerel don’t like silty water, so when strong fronts roil the Gulf they stay farther offshore where the water is clean. But the forecast is calling for light winds, and we should see both king and Spanish mackerel showing up in nearshore waters. Both of these fish are fast-swimming predators, so fast-moving lures appeal to them. Spoons, cedar plugs and trolled lipped plugs all work very well. Troll at 4 to 6 knots or cast and retrieve rapidly. Macks have very sharp teeth that will instantly slice through light lines. Wire is mostly cut-proof, but in clear water these sharp-eyed fish are less likely to strike on wire leader. Heavy fluorocarbon material (60- to 100-pound test) is much less visible but still offers some protection. If you must use wire, a short piece (6 inches) is strongly recommended. Mackerel are very good to eat fresh; not so great frozen. Edibility is largely in how the fish is handled. As soon as it’s caught, throw it right into slush (not a hard bed of ice) in the cooler. This will kill your fish by hypothermia, which means most of the fishy-tasting blood ends up in the organs you’re going to discard. Trust me — this one simple thing makes a world of difference.

Spring and fall usually bring an abundance of Spanish mackerel to Southwest Florida. For many anglers, the mackerel run means it’s time to break out the wire leaders. These fish have incredibly sharp teeth that can slice through light mono or fluorocarbon in an instant. But wire’s not perfect, mostly because fish can see it very easily. Using a wire leader can reduce your bites by half. So try this instead: Bump up to 60- or 80-pound fluorocarbon. Heavy fluoro ain’t cheap, but you don’t need much. A foot is plenty. You’ll get almost as many strikes with it as you will with lighter leader material, and it’s much less likely to be cut. Some fishermen prefer to use lures that have hooks only near the back (long, skinny spoons are a good example) and skip the leader entirely. The idea is that the fish’s teeth will be nowhere near the line, so the leader is unnecessary. That’s a super plan if you’re catching fish that hang out alone. But mackerel are a schooling species, and they compete for food. They’ll literally try to steal morsels from the mouth of their schoolmates. Many times, the fish that cuts you off isn’t the one you hooked — it’s one of his buddies. Heavy fluoro will prevent a lot of this. It’s not cut-proof, but it’s the ideal compromise.

Mackerel are fun and popular, but there are some common mistakes made when rigging up for these fast predators. Don’t use swivels. While it may be easier to tie a line to a swivel than tie a line-to-line knot, a swivel makes a tempting target for a mackerel, which might mistake it for a small baitfish. If your swivel gets chomped, so does your line. Avoid using large lures for Spanish mackerel. They prefer to feed on small baits, sometimes less than an inch long (which is why they eat swivels). Small but heavy spoons like the Kastmaster and heavy, short-skirted jigs (like those for pompano) are good choices. If you use wire leader, use brown-colored wire, which the fish will notice less than shiny material. Keep your drag set lightly, especially when you’re trolling. Macks have tender mouths, and a tight drag is likely to just pull the hook from its lip. Finally, don’t assume a mackerel in the fishbox can’t hurt you. Their teeth are incredibly sharp, and many anglers have been sliced open by fish that are very much dead.

MULLET

“I’ve tried everything to catch those jumping fish but they just won’t bite!” This is a common lament of recent transplants to Southwest Florida, expressing their frustration at trying to hook a mullet. These high-flying fish are very visible, but trying to get one to take a lure mostly just results in big piles of fail. Sure, every now and then one will hit a soft plastic lure or a sabiki rig — but you definitely can’t count on it. Some old-timers still chum them with rolled oats and catch them on doughballs. This technique works best in fresh water (yes, mullet live just fine in fresh water). In salty seas, they can sometimes be tempted with tiny light-colored wet flies. No fly rod? Put the fly behind a casting bubble half-full of water to give it enough weight to throw. Don’t move the fly around too much — try to keep it suspended in the mullet’s face as much as possible. If you don’t have the patience, snagging also works pretty well, although it really puts a damper on the sport factor. However you catch them, be sure to break their necks to bleed them out and then get them on ice as quickly as possible. Mullet are great eating, but they’re oily and spoil fast if you let them. Grilled, fried or smoked, they’re a real treat.

If you came to Southwest Florida from somewhere up north, you can probably remember the first time you saw a mullet jump. You probably got pretty excited, too — until you learned they won’t take a bait. Now you know only suckers cast to mullet, right? Well, it depends where they are. A few jumping mullet in a canal are just fool’s gold, but a school of them on a flat can lead you to the real deal. As mullet feed, they slurp mouthfuls of bottom sediment and filter out the edible detritus. This activity disturbs all sorts of small creatures: Fish, shrimp, crabs, worms, even clams. Enter the predators. Redfish will often form mixed species schools with mullet, taking advantage of their bottom-digging. Snook and trout will sometimes hang around the edges, waiting for something spooked to swim past. Cobia, jacks and even sharks are sometimes associated with the wandering schools. Soft plastic baits are among the best choices to fish in these conditions. Cast your lure to where the school is headed. As they pass, hop or twitch the lure and it will look like something trying to burrow back into the seafloor. Once the school passes by, start an erratic retrieve to mimic a little critter looking for a hiding spot.

POMPANO

Pompano are starting to show up in many places around Southwest Florida. For most fishermen, these tasty jacks are an incidental catch, but there are a few things you can do to increase your chances of hooking more than one or two. First, let’s look at baits. Pomps will eat baitfish, but for the most part they prefer shrimp, crabs and other crustaceans. Live or frozen baits work well, but so do artificials. Silly jigs, short-skirted bucktail jigs and gold spoons are all good choices. But how you work the lure is key. Pompano have mouths low on their faces, and they’re used to looking down for dinner. Keep your lures on or near the bottom as much as possible. Most crustaceans do more crawling than swimming, so work your lures slowly. Bounce them along the bottom to get some puffs of sand or silt going. Focus your efforts on areas of mixed sand and grass or around dropoffs. Passes produce pretty well, and so do bar edges. Channels often get overlooked but can hold large numbers of fish. Pompano prefer to school, so where you find one there will usually be more.

REDFISH

There’s not much redfish like better than a chunk of fresh cutbait sitting on the bottom, but cutbait is lousy for searching out fish. For that job, an artificial lure is much better suited. And the top artificial is probably a gold spoon. Not all gold spoons are created equal, though. Some spoons sink quickly, which means they have to be worked very fast in shallow water or else you’re just raking up grass. Look for a spoon that is hammered thin, with lots of surface area compared to its weight. Ideally, it should have a single hook, not a treble — again, because when you’re fishing shallow water, the treble is just a grass magnet. The Johnson Silver Minnow (in gold, now, not silver) isn’t a bad choice in the 1/8- or 1/4-ounce sizes, but the weedguard often ends up stuck in a fish’s face. Better to just snap it off. The Aqua Dream weedless spoons are my choice, usually in 1/4-ounce. The weedguard actually works to keep grass off the spoon and is made of flexible cable, so it never stabs a redfish in the snout. Plus, the textured finish reflects flashes of light all around as you reel it in. Just crawl/hop it over the grass and oysters. When you find the fish, have cutbait or stinky dead shrimp ready to go.

SHARKS

The sharks are coming! The sharks are coming! This isn’t a warning — it’s a happy announcement that the action for one of our most fun fish is about to go off. But you need to be ready. First thing: Tackle. Not too light, not too heavy. A dual-drag spinning reel or conventional reel that holds 200 yards of 30-pound mono or 50-pound braid should do. If you want to fight sharks from shore, you’ll need big line capacity. Think 500 yards at a minimum. A beefy rod, let’s say between a 20- and 50-pound rating, is about right. Yes, you need wire, but not as much as you might think. A two-foot piece of single-strand is all you need, but you also need 6 to 10 feet of leader between the wire and your main line. 80- or 100-pound mono or fluoro will do it. Hooks don’t need to be huge, but they should be stout wire. A J-hook from 6/0 to 10/0 is about right, depending on the size of your bait. You can use circle hooks if you want, but getting them back is tricky. Baits should be live or fresh dead if possible. Frozen is a last resort, and don’t bother with anything spoiled or rotten. Fish wherever you see baitfish, diving birds or fish boiling at the surface. Chum is good, but use ground fish, not beef or chicken blood. When a shark takes your bait, you’ll need to let him run for a moment before you grab the rod (that’s why regular spinning reels don’t work well). Once he’s on, be ready for a fight — and be ready to give chase with the boat. If it’s a big one, you might be in for a couple hours of fighting. Once the fish is at the boat, use caution for yourself and the shark. Unless you plan to harvest the shark, keep it in the water. A shark’s internal organs are easily damaged by hauling it onto the boat’s deck — plus that’s how a lot of anglers end up with nasty bites. The easiest way to release the shark is to cut the wire near its mouth. Stay safe!

SHEEPSHEAD

In early fall, before the first real touch of chill appears in the air has yet to arrive, sheepshead start showing up out on the flats and oyster barsl. Don’t get too excited yet — it will be several weeks before the bite becomes anything like consistent, and the upper parts of Charlotte Harbor probably won’t host numbers of sheepies until the New Year. But it’s good to see a few around, and if you spot any they’re certainly worth targeting. The most productive way to catch them is with stout-hooked jigheads or larva jigs. Baiting up with shrimp is best, because shrimp are much easier to get than small crabs. Larger shrimp are harder for them to eat, so get little ones. Hook the shrimp through the tail and toss it in the sheepie’s general vicinity. Usually, he’ll swim right over and grab it. Keep the line tight enough that you can feel the take, and when you do just reel — no jerking the rod, unless you want to miss that fish. Don’t even lift the rod until you can feel that the fish is hooked. If you’ve heard tales of how tough sheepshead are to hook, this may seem overly simplistic. But give it a shot and see if hooking sheepies isn’t easier than you thought.

Hooking sheepshead is not the easiest skill to master. There are two reasons: First, most things in a sheepie’s mouth are hard. You can’t set a hook into those teeth, and the palate is made of concrete. Second, they feed in an unusual way. A sheepshead will suck food into its mouth, crush it, spit it out, suck it in again, crush it some more if necessary, maybe spit it out again … you get the idea. When you feel the first taps and try to set the hook, all you’re doing is pulling the bait away from the fish. Be patient and wait. When you feel a pull — not taps, but an actual pull — start reeling. Don’t jerk the rod! Just reel. You’ll know pretty quickly whether you’ve hooked a sheepshead or not. Expect a success rate of 10 to 20 percent. You can improve your odds by using tough baits, which are harder for the fish to pull off the hook, or soft baits which require less crushing. Raw clams, peeled chunks of shrimp, red wigglers and strips of Gulp! bait are all good choices that fit one of these categories. Live shrimp and small crabs, which sheepshead adore, don’t fall into either category. Although they may draw faster strikes, you’ll probably go through more baits for each fish that you actually catch, and probably get a bit more frustrated. Small, very sharp hooks are effective for most anglers, though some prefer jigheads.

SNAPPER, MANGROVE

Each summer, mangrove snapper gather up for their big spawn. But targeting the bigger ones isn’t easy. Some fishermen swear by silver dollar-size pinfish, which are a good choice — but in many places, you’ll catch more short red grouper than you will snapper. If only there were a bait that the snapper really went for but the grouper didn’t like quite as much … oh, wait! There is. Snapper love, love, love crabs. Grouper feel pretty ambivalent about them. So dropping crabs gets the snapper more excited than the little grouper. Of course, there’s the problem of acquiring them. If the bait shop has any, they’ll want a chunk of change for them, it being tarpon season and all. So go catch your own. On good outgoing tides, there should be a fair number of speckled crabs, blue crabs and iridescent swimming crabs paddling along near the surface. They’re not too hard to dip up with a long-handled fine-mesh net (which, at about $10, costs less than three crabs). Just use them soon — iridescents in particular are hard to keep alive even overnight.

SNAPPER, RED

With red snapper open briefly in federal Gulf waters, this is a good time to review a few tips for this species. Since you can only take two per harvester, the goal is to collect the largest fish possible. First, plan to go as far out as you can. You can catch reds in water as shallow as 80 feet, but deeper water holds bigger ones. My recommendation: 160 feet or better. Red snapper are not too picky and will eat most live or dead baits, but your goal is larger fish. Therefore, I suggest either vertical butterfly jigs, which are usually taken by larger and more aggressive fish, or live squid, which are the ultimate snapper candy. Catching live squid is easy at night. Drop over a submersible light while drifting. Keep it near the surface. Squid will come to you. When they do, offer them half a sardine with no hook. They’ll grab it. Give them 15 seconds to get a good grip, then gently lift them right into the live well. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. When you drop a live squid down, be ready to reel — if the fish are there, you’ll be hooked up very quickly. Good luck, and recompress or vent the fish you decide to release.

SNOOK

Snook love flowing water. When we see unseasonably heavy rains in winter or spring, they show up to take advantage. With billions of gallons of runoff flowing through our river systems, they’ll have a field day at the mouths of little creeks and canals, around bridge and pier pilings, and anyplace else they can hide where current goes past. Most fishermen think of snook as saltwater fish, but they’re very much at home in the rivers. During the winter, snook are regularly caught as far up the Peace as Wauchula, and it’s not that outlandish to hook one in Okeechobee. Fresh water doesn’t bother them, as long as there’s food. And with all the Mayan cichlids, walking catfish, tilapia and loaches that are getting flushed out by the rain, it’s a great time to be a river or canal snook when the sky starts falling.

TARPON

When tarpon roll in large numbers, they’re easy to see — especially if the water is calm and the sun is bright. But we don’t always have such perfect conditions for spotting rolling tarpon. When it gets a little rough, it’s very hard to tell a whitecap from a tarpon’s back, and when the sky is overcast or dim, there’s no telltale glint off the silver. What’s a tarpon fisherman to do? If you think you’re seeing rolling fish but you aren’t sure, try trolling in the area. A DOA Bait Buster works well; so does a big Hogy. If you don’t have either, any big swimbait or lipped plug will do. Keep it slow (about 3 knots) and keep a sharp eye around you. If there are tarpon nearby, you’ll probably see a surer sign eventually. One will roll close to the boat, or maybe even free-jump — that’s an undeniable sign right there. Troll for 20 minutes, and if you haven’t had a hit or seen a fish, reel up and move on to a greener pasture. By having a bait or two in the water while you hunt, you hugely increase your chances of hooking up with a silver king, or perhaps a cobia or even a kingfish. After all, you won’t get many strikes when your lure is in the boat.

What does a tarpon eat? Lots of things. It’s actually probably easier to list the things a tarpon won’t eat. Tarpon have enormous energy requirements and mouths to match. Almost any fish of suitable size might find its way down that gullet, from tiny fry to 10-pound snook. Commonly eaten fish include bay anchovies (glass minnows), scaled sardines (whitebait), threadfin herring, menhaden, leatherjackets (skipjacks), ladyfish, mullet, catfish, pinfish, silver trout and Spanish mackerel. Crabs are big on the menu, with swimming crabs (blue, calico and Pass crabs) eaten more frequently but stone crabs and other bottom-dwellers are taken as well. Shrimp are another favorite, and don’t think a 200-pounder won’t slurp a 3-inch shrimp. In the Keys, orange palolo worms seem to be a special treat when they’re available. Other aquatic worms are also eaten, though not often —tarpon aren’t redfish and rarely root through grass or mud for supper. However, they’re definitely not picky about their food being live, or even particularly fresh. Many tarpon are caught on chunks of cutbait being fished for sharks. Mullet, ladyfish and catfish tails are especially good choices if you want to target a tarpon. Tarpon have also been known to stuff themselves on hatchling sea turtles. Of course, you can trick them into eating all manner of artificials made from nylon, feathers, shiny metal or plastic, but that’s not the only inedible stuff they’ll try to eat. When they’re in the mood and hungry, they’ll try to sample almost anything. Sometime when you’re in an experimental mood, try chucking a hot dog at a tarpon. If he’s looking for a meal, chances are pretty good he’ll turn and hit it. I would use a kosher dog if I were you.

Big tarpon are not an ideal light-tackle target. One of the keys to releasing healthy tarpon is limiting the fight time, and the best way to do that is to use heavy tackle. And when the fish are in deep water, go even heavier. For tarpon in Boca Grande Pass, at least 50-pound line and a rod with plenty of backbone are what you want to haul those fish upward from the depths. In the shallow waters of the Harbor, you can probably whip them just as quickly on 30-pound line and heavy spinning gear. Yes, it’s possible to land 100-pound tarpon on redfish tackle, but you either have to be really lucky or spend a long time fighting that fish. Tarpon research has shown that fish fought to exhaustion build up large amounts of lactic acid in their muscles and take a long time to recover afterward, during which time they are much more vulnerable to predation by sharks. Even without sharks around, they may die simply of shock. Since tarpon are much more valuable alive than dead, conservation-minded anglers will use tackle that matches their quarry. If you really want to take on tarpon using light tackle, why don’t you go find some light-tackle-size tarpon? There are lots of them in the canals and the backcountry. Whether they’ll eat is another story. In general, they like small baits (remember, baby tarpon are mostly insect feeders in their mangrove nursery waters).

TROUT

Spotted seatrout are a Southwest Florida favorite in cool weather, and in fall fishermen start to look for them. But don’t expect them to be in their winter spots right away. When the water is chilly, trout like to bask in water so shallow it sometimes barely covers their backs. Early in the season, you’ll have better luck looking deeper. Although most of us associate trout with seagrass beds, in many areas they’re more often found on mud flats. Either will do, as long as there’s a food supply. What’s most important right now is water temperature, and deeper is cooler. Fish live bait or soft plastics in 4 to 8 feet of water outside the bars, along the Intracoastal Waterway, in the passes, and in navigation channels. For the best bite, work your lures slowly and not far off the bottom. Big trout tend to focus more on fish than shrimp, but if you’re fishing over mud, shrimp may be the more abundant food. Be prepared to try several spots before you luck into a jackpot. In warm water, trout are already a little stressed, so keep your fights short to ensure the best chances for survival after release.

So many trout, so few keepers. As we get into the start of good cool-water trout fishing, the overwhelming majority of the fish most of us will catch are going to be shorts. We’ve been blessed with an improving trout fishery over the last few years, and it’s on us to keep it that way. That means doing what we can to ensure that our released little trout survive to be bigger trout. Getting them unhooked with minimal injury is step one, so take a pair of pliers and crush the barbs of your trout hooks. As long as you keep the line fairly tight, you’ll have no problems with hooked fish falling off — but getting the hook out is a whole lot easier. Avoid slinging fish into the boat if you can. It’s much better for them to remain in the water during the release process. Dehooking devices are safest for the fish. If you don't use them, at least always be sure your hands are wet when you touch a trout’s delicate skin. Following these simple guidelines will greatly improve a released trout’s chance of survival — and improve your chances of catching some big ones later on.

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