Three anglers were standing in neck-deep water off a beach on the Florida panhandle, being circled by a 12-foot shark—the kind of shark that makes its living attacking swordfish, tuna, and other sharks. It was the next-to-last moment in a beach-fishing adventure none of them will forget, and it ended safely for all of them, including the shark.

On November 12, Travis Lucas and friends Joshua Smith and Ben Brandner caught and released a very large shortfin mako shark from the beach. It’s exceedingly rare to catch a mako from shore; they prefer deep water and the larger prey that live there. This was the first confirmed shore-caught mako at Cape San Blas, about an hour east of Panama City. The shark was released per the rules; harvesting Atlantic mako sharks has been prohibited since 2022 due to overfishing.

Lucas, Smith, and Brandner never expected to catch a mako, let alone one that’s about as big as they get. “We usually just target big species, like bull sharks,” Lucas recalled. A week earlier, they had caught a 12-foot dusky shark and a 13-foot great hammerhead.

The Hometown Sharkers Score Big

The group, “Hometown Sharkers” on their social media, specialize in overnight beach outings.
Lucas was set up with an Okuma Makaira 130 reel spooled with 200-pound Reaction Tackle braid, a 300-pound mono top shot, and a homemade 800-pound leader on a 7-foot Rainshadow rod. The 24/0 circle hook was baited with a chunk of a blacktip shark caught earlier in the day.

Lucas had dropped the bait from a kayak about 1,000 yards offshore at sunset and paddled back to camp. During the evening, “we ended up catching a smaller bull shark on another rod,” he said. After that, it was a calm, cool night on a quiet beach—until it wasn’t.

“We had actually dozed off,” Lucas said. “I woke up to the 130 screaming.” He got into his harness and immediately knew the fish was heavy, perhaps a tiger shark. “It started pulling pretty significant drag pretty effortlessly,” he said.

Ten minutes in, the fish “woke up” and began leaping in the moonlight, “pretty much back-to-back for three or four minutes in one position, and then again in the next,” Lucas said. Eventually, the acrobatics ended. The fish ran toward shore a couple of times, which made life easier for Lucas, and the fight was over in 35 minutes.

As the fish neared the beach, the anglers still didn’t know what they had caught. Maybe a hammerhead, they thought. When it reached the wash, they thought it may have been a great white. When they finally got a light on it, “there was a lot of screaming,” Lucas recalled.

Team Release

“Releasing that fish was one of the most memorable situations I’ve had,” he said. “We realized it was a mako. Josh runs out with the tail rope. I come out with bolt cutters and the hook remover. We get out there, assess the situation, get it unhooked, get the leader off of it. It was about 49 degrees, it was cold.”

Lucas’s wife, Flower, and the other guys’ girlfriends watched and held flashlights from the beach. The group began moving the mako to deeper water to ease its release. “So it’s pitch black outside. We get out past the sandbar, so we know she can swim off. She swims out 10 or 15 feet and comes back at us. She made three full circles around us before thrashing at the surface and then swimming off. It was definitely nerve-wracking.”

The group saw for themselves why makos are sometimes confused with, blue sharks. “They are in every sense of the word ‘blue sharks’,” Lucas said. “When the light hits them they’ll go from deep purple to blue, and it’s a color you’d never expect to see from an animal. It almost seems like it’s a holographic. They’re pretty wild looking. It’s definitely a once in a lifetime fish.”

The post Massive Mako Caught on Florida Beach appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

I’m clearly a glutton for punishment. For most anglers, fishing trips involve making a milk run of spots that have delivered for them in the past, and hoping that at least one of them will hold feeding fish on that day. It’s an efficient strategy that certainly increases the chances for success. But to me, it’s as boring as reading a book on String Theory.

The joy for me in the sport of angling is not in reeling in a fish but rather in overcoming the challenge of figuring out the fish. Each bite is just confirmation that the fish were doing what my analysis determined they should be. Once the fish is hooked, I’d just as soon hand the rod to someone else to reel it in.

Because of that, I rarely fish the same spot twice, preferring to hit new areas that require me to read the water and make exploratory casts to determine if my hypotheses were correct. Since my home state of Louisiana has 2.5 million acres of coastal wetlands, the options are almost endless for anglers like me who want to channel their inner Vasco da Gama.

As such, most of my fishing trips actually begin at my desk staring at Google Earth on my Mac. I look for areas rich in hydrographic features that should deliver based on expected conditions on the day I’m fishing.

To me, one of the most predictable occurs during or immediately following an atmospheric feature that most south Louisiana anglers despise — a west wind. Breezes with a compass reading anywhere from about 225 to 315 cause water in Louisiana’s marshes to flee like tourists the day after Mardi Gras. Lakes, bays and lagoons that may have produced fish the day before a westerly wind will be as fishless and nearly as dry as the Mojave.

Since those are the areas that most anglers fish, west winds are as popular in south Louisiana as bland gumbo. But those fish have to go somewhere, and to me, a west wind merely serves to concentrate them and make them easier to catch. That’s particularly true with speckled trout and redfish, although the strategies I employ to find them differ slightly. 

If I’m hoping to get a speckled-trout fix, I scan the satellite images and make note of medium-sized bayous that drain marsh lakes or lagoons. From September through May, specks will stuff their faces in these water bodies. They will retreat to the nearest deep water when forced to by Mother Nature. Although major bayous with depths to 20 feet are certainly worth checking, the sweet spots for me are bayous with 6 to 10 feet of depth. Invariably, once on sight, I’ll make my first cast at the first bend of each of those bayous.

If I’m craving the hard hits and strong pulls of redfish, my game plan varies slightly. What I look for in my map study are small bayous that connect two marsh ponds. Redfish seem to always want to be as shallow as possible, often hunting for snacks in water no deeper than the height of their bodies. So when ponds get dry or too shallow to swim, the fish stack up in absurd numbers in these small bayous that measure only 2 to 3 feet deep.

Often the challenge is getting to these tiny waterways in the low-water conditions, an obstacle that’s overcome with the use of a mud motor or with nerves of steel while running an outboard over glorified mud puddles. The latter is the method I employ, so a push pole is standard gear on my boat. It’s saved me from spending the night in the marsh more times than my wife will ever know.

Admittedly, not every medium-sized bayou that drains a marsh lake will hold speckled trout, and not every small bayou between two ponds will be crowded with redfish. So I find several before I ever pull my boat out of the garage, and I’ll hit them all in a day’s fishing. Ground truthing my hypotheses is what makes this sport fun.

The post West Winds Are the Best Winds appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

For decades, the cobia migration along the Florida Panhandle in the spring brought Chris Wagner, of Fort Walton Beach, the most incredible fishing of his life. “Up in the tower of our Hatteras, the wind at our backs, the sun in my eyes, spotting those fish, that’s what I loved,” he said. “When I saw one, it was like an electrical shock went through my body.”

Wagner, a retired HVAC contractor, had those spring days for more than 30 years. He started fishing for cobia in 1989, and he got his own boat in ’90. “All through the ‘90s we had double-digit sightings, days when we saw 60 to 70 fish,” Wagner told me recently. “From ’97 through the early 2000s we’d get 100-pounders, routinely.”

Tournaments grew big, big cash and big crowds. Wagner and his team took first place in many of them. Some they won repeatedly. Now it’s all gone. The cobia are not dependable. And the big tournaments stopped. “It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “Last year we went out a few times. Some days we didn’t even see a fish. We kept one cobia all season.”

Anglers started seeing a slowdown in cobia numbers about 10 years ago, in 2013 and ’14.

“To me,” Wagner says, “it boils down to one thing: overfishing. I’m as guilty as anybody, too. It’s not one person’s fault. I got to the point where I felt like whatever needs to be done to bring them back should be done. Regulations can help. I still wish that they would go for a Gulf-wide closure on cobia,” he says. “Any regulation changes have to be Gulf-wide.”

Cobia Regulations Reconsidered

“We first heard about a potential problem in 2016 or 2017,” says Emily Muehlstein, Public Information Officer for the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council. “Commenters from the Panhandle region of Florida and from Texas expressed concern about cobia’s decline. Simultaneously folks in Louisiana and South Florida indicated that the stock was doing fine.

“Then we received a surge in comments expressing concern for cobia starting in 2018 when we were working on Framework Amendment 7, which increased the Gulf cobia size limit to 36 inches fork length,” Muehlstein said.

In 2022, the Gulf Council reduced the annual catch limit for cobia of 4,500,000 pounds down to 2,600,000 for 2023—a sizeable reduction. The Council also reduced the bag and vessel limit to one cobia per person, two per vessel. The next Gulf-wide stock assessment is scheduled for 2025. In the interim, Muehlstein said, the Council has embarked on efforts to learn more from fishing communities about how the fisheries for cobia and other coastal migratory pelagics have changed in recent years in hopes of informing proactive management decisions.

Where Did the Cobia Go?

If the biggest cobia in the Gulf were fished out of the stock, the species would need time and protection to recover. Other factors, however, might also be at play. The Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010 is sometimes cited, the suggestion being that its pollutants destroyed cobia’s spawn. Changing sea surface temperatures might also have a role.

Anglers like Wagner who observe their regional waters over decades point out another possible factor—cyclical shifts in migration patterns of pelagic and coastal pelagic species. Wagner, and other anglers on the Gulf and the Atlantic coasts, say that while Panhandle cobia have declined, catches along certain Atlantic coast locations have increased.

“In the last 5 to 10 years, they’ve actually crushed them up in North Carolina,” Wagner says. “We know that Gulf cobia go up the East Coast. Some of the fish that we’ve tagged along the Panhandle have shown up in the Chesapeake Bay.”

A Cobia Mystery

Read Hendon is Oceanic and Coastal Pelagics Branch Chief at the NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center. For years, Hendon conducted tagging studies on cobia with Jim Franks at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory at the University of Southern Mississippi. Among other insights, their work suggested that there might be a more western route of seasonal migration for cobia in the Gulf and that some cobia overwintered around deep oil rigs in the north-central Gulf, but he has not seen studies that confirm a shift in migration patterns.

“Based on the most recent stock assessment and lack of any direct research into distributional shifts or changes in migratory patterns,” Hendon says, “the absence is more of a mystery from a scientific perspective at this time.”

Chris Wagner said the idea that they’re still in the Gulf has occurred to him. “If we found out that they were down deeper, out farther, and still going by the Panhandle, I could live with that. But if the cobia returned and I got to catch them with my grandkids, that would make me happy.”

The post What Happened to Florida’s Panhandle Cobia? appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Three years ago, when my wife and I bought a condo a long baseball throw from the white sand of the Florida Panhandle, I knew as much about surf fishing as a grandmother from Appalachia. I had done it a few times in my fishing career, but always as a tag-along with others who had more experience. They did the hard work of finding areas that provided a good chance for success.

To the neophyte, the surf is the surf. It’s just endless miles of waves crashing on an indistinct shoreline, and the fish could be absolutely anywhere. Anglers with little or no experience might tote a rod to the water’s edge and walk the shoreline, making more casts than a desperate guy at a singles’ bar, just hoping for the best.

But my experience with other methods of fishing told me that wouldn’t be the most efficient technique. Ironically, what helped develop my strategy for effective surf-fishing was drift-fishing in water with the salt content of a glass of milk. Multiple times every year, whenever South Louisiana goes a couple weeks without any measurable rainfall, I tag along with Independence resident Joe Lavigne, 74, who skulls a thin-metal flat boat down a local river. 

A lifetime of experience has taught Lavigne where fish hold in moving water, and on every trip, he calls his shot multiple times, accurately predicting which casts will produce bites from pugnacious spotted bass. I may never be as skilled as him, but still, I’ve learned a lot in two decades of fishing with Lavigne. I’ve gotten pretty good at identifying fishy areas — where troughs are immediately adjacent to shallow water.

Figuring the same axiom had to hold true in the surf, I set out early in the morning after the first night at our new condo, intent on reading the water to determine where the anomalies existed. I imagined I’d return with a stringer of fish slung across my back, and hail my wife with a hearty “Good Morning,” just as she was taking her first sip of coffee.

But as Mike Tyson famously quipped, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. What socked me in the jaw that morning was the fact that, in the low light, I couldn’t tell where the bars were. An experienced surf angler could have probably seen subtle differences in how the waves were breaking, but to me, they looked entirely random.

So I just walked the beach making casts, and lucked into one undersized redfish. No one likes failure when fishing, but I absolutely despise it. It gnaws at me and lives at the forefront of my mind until I’m able to turn myself from a zero to a hero. Fortunately, I wouldn’t have to wait long for that to happen.

To me, the beach is just a cool place to stand while you’re fishing, but my wife would spend all day every day there if she could. So in the interest of marital harmony, I hauled some beach chairs and an umbrella to the sand under a high midday sun, intent to put the misery of my early morning failure behind me.

And that’s when I found what I had been looking for. The wind was light and blowing offshore, which allowed any sediment in the water to settle out, and the tide had fallen since my early morning venture. Combined with both those factors, the early afternoon sun pierced the veil between me and nirvana, illuminating a boomerang-shaped sandbar 200 yards east that kissed the edge of the beach. I walked over, and through my polarized lenses, could clearly see a deep trough adjacent to the bar.

I wanted to sprint back to the condo, grab my rod and spend the rest of the day fishing, but then I remembered that whole marital harmony thing, and besides, I figured the fishing would be better in the morning on the rising tide.

I made a note of the exact location of the bar, and then I returned the next morning.

Throwing a shrimp-colored soft-plastic paddle tail on a 1/4-ounce jighead, I caught a flounder on literally my first cast, and then proceeded to catch nine more. The season was closed in Florida, so stuffed flounder would not be one of the first meals at our new condo, but I couldn’t have cared less. The validation of figuring something out in a new fishing environment meant far more than any feast. 

Since then, I’ve used that exact strategy to have consistent success in the surf. Whenever we visit our condo, my first afternoon is spent walking the beach, searching for bars that have a perpendicular element, relative to the shoreline.

When I find them, I’m confident they will produce fish in the morning. In the fall, it’s flounder. In the winter, it’s redfish. In the spring, it’s speckled trout. And in the summer, it could be any of the above. I still wouldn’t consider myself a surf-fishing expert, but man, it’s been a fun journey trying to get to that level.

The post Find Fish in the Surf appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Alabama’s Gulf Shores and adjacent Orange Beach feature one of those stretches of coastline that look absolutely fishy. And it is. I’ve been there and experienced it. For example, I’ll never forget a memorable bite, casting XXL topwater lures to schooling bull reds — all 20- to 40-pound fish — just offshore the beaches. I was fishing maybe a quarter- to a half-mile off the beach with Capt. Clif Jones. For several hours I gaped in awe as monster redfish climbed all over each other to be the first to clobber my big surface lure on every cast. The January morning was icy cold, but the reds didn’t mind, and the stiff north wind blew directly off the beach, so we enjoyed calm water.

That was a quarter-century ago. These days Jones (who has recently retired after more than three decades as an active guide out of Orange Beach) sees a paradox with the bull reds on the outside beaches. On the one hand, there’s more bait than ever, so the fish are more scattered versus sitting on fewer, tight groups of bait. On the other hand, “There are also more redfish around now than ever,” he says.

Given my experience, I tend to think of redfish when I consider this stretch of Alabama coast. But while red drum are one of the premier species, there’s so much more. Anglers here tend to separate their fisheries into three categories, relative to the shore: inshore, nearshore and offshore.

Fishing inshore refers to the extensive system of back bays, channels and flats. So many bays — Perdido to the east and massive Mobile Bay to the west, with smaller bays in between — offer year-round fishing in protected waters. Primary targets are redfish, speckled trout, flounder and sheepshead, plus at times Spanish mackerel, jacks and more. You’ll find the best inshore fishing spring and fall. Summer can be productive, but these days Gulf Shores and Orange Beach have become such a popular summer destination that, Jones says, it’s simply too busy and crowded much of the time during the school’s-out season.

Nearshore means fishing along the beaches and out a short distance, but not as far as deep water. Expect plenty of variety depending on the season, conditions, bait and other variables — both red and black drum can be thick and big, particularly in colder months, with 15- to 40-pound fish typical. Other game fish you’ll find in nearshore waters include cobia (especially in the spring), bluefish, Spanish mackerel, kingfish, gray snapper, blacktip shark, triggerfish, tarpon and more.

Connecting inshore and nearshore waters are inlets, notably Perdido Pass at the east end of Orange Beach. With so much tidal flow, Gulf passes like this, and the area just outside the passes, tend to be magnets for bait and predators. These areas also may be crowded in summer, but an angler is likely to find fish in the pass any month.

For anglers venturing offshore and willing to make the run to deeper water (figure 15 to 40 miles), besides scattered rocks and some natural hard bottom, there are oil rigs and artificial reefs. Out here, anglers look for the usual suspects in the northern Gulf: billfish, yellowfin and blackfin tuna, at times mahi and wahoo, red snapper, amberjack, gag grouper, and grey triggerfish. For those making a directed effort, swordfish are available too. 

While sailfish can be a pretty frequent catch, blue water here is dominated by white marlin. Jones says, “We can have great numbers of white marlin. I’ve had days with 12 to 14 bites.” The crowds of summer visitors aren’t a factor offshore, and summer is definitely prime time.

For the most part, the sea floor of the northern Gulf is pretty austere — flat, featureless mud and sand. In that setting, any sort of reef will be a tremendous fish magnet. So it’s not surprising that the artificial reefs off Gulf Shores and Orange Beach are so productive. It might be surprising, however, to learn that in its rather short length of Gulf coastline — just 53 miles — the state of Alabama boasts the largest artificial reef program in the U.S. Reefs can be sunken ships, barges, tanks, bridges, rubble, repurposed concrete culverts and pipes, and more. You can find literally thousands of reefs listed at outdooralabama.com, including the .gpx files to import directly into GPS hardware, as well as interactive maps and a downloadable complete guide to Alabama’s artificial reefs. While some of the artificial reefs sit 50 miles or more offshore, others — known as circalittoral reefs — can be in less than 10 feet of water near shore.

A boat is hardly requisite for fishing coastal Alabama, thanks in part to the Gulf State Park Pier, one of the longest on the Gulf coast at 1,540 feet. Then there are the Orange Beach jetties, offering access to great habitat and moving water, as well as endless beaches for surf fishermen.

Anglers visiting these waters can drive via Interstate 10 or 65. Many major cities are within an easy day’s drive. Commercial airlines serve nearby Pensacola (Florida) and Mobile (Alabama) regional airports. New Orleans international airport is about 3 ½ hours down the road. With so much growth in tourism here, you can be sure the choice of accommodations of all types is extensive. Keep in mind that from roughly Memorial Day through Labor Day, things are booked up long ahead. 

Those who plan to book a charter for one or more days fishing can choose from more than 100 operations, from big offshore convertible sport-fishing yachts to fast, open center consoles for inshore and nearshore. Private boaters who trailer in or boat in will discover a wealth of full-service marinas. Many offer launch ramps, plus public launch areas are scattered throughout the bays. For general information, visit gulfshores.com.

The post Can’t Miss Coastal Alabama Fishing appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

From their white-quartz sand and sapphire offshore waters to their natural tidal bays and creeks, plus everything from mackerel to marlin, Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, Alabama, might just anchor saltwater-fishing’s short list of well-kept secrets.

In fact, a local captain nearly spilled the beans in October, weighing in a 1,145.6-pound blue marlin—a potential Alabama and Gulf of Mexico world record. The region also hosts multiple offshore tournaments each year, including the $1 million Orange Beach Billfish Classic in May.

Blue marlin can be caught year-round off Alabama, but the prime months run from March to November. “For blues, we do troll traditional lures, but most people are live-baiting with bonitos and small tunas,” says Chris Vecsey, tackle manager at Sam’s, a bait-and-tackle shop in Orange Beach.

Offshore runs for big blues can be long—from 60 to more than 100 miles—but anglers searching for bait schools and structure score memorable catches.

The trips shorten for yellowfin tuna, wahoo and mahi. During warmer months, the tuna range in as close as 35 miles. Anglers target them by live-baiting, chunking, trolling, jigging, and even casting stickbaits and poppers.  

Wahoo prime time runs March through October, with fish traveling closer to shore—within a few miles—during summer. Vecsey casts for wahoo if he finds them on a floating structure. Once he marks the fish on sonar, he throws a 3-to-4-ounce spoon or lipless plug and lets it sink. He points the rod tip straight at the lure and retrieves it as fast as he can.

As in many Southern regions, mahi-mahi school more from May through October. Anglers search for debris, weed lines, color changes and flotsam, and then troll ballyhoo and daisy chains.

Closer to shore, Alabama waters feature natural hard-bottom structures and plentiful artificial reefs that host red, lane and mangrove snappers, as well as gag, scamp, snowy and yellowedge groupers. Anglers use live baits, such as cigar minnows fished on a Carolina rig and dead bait, as well as vertical jigs. (Laws strictly regulate reef species, so check local rules and seasons to confirm required gear, such as venting tools and descending devices.)

Inshore, beach and nearshore fishing adds a long list of species to the game plan. Early in the year, around Perdido Pass and the gas rigs off Fort Morgan, anglers target sheepshead on fiddler crabs and shrimp, Vecsey says. Speckled trout look for warm spots in the creeks and coastal rivers and can be tempted with live croakers and shrimp.

Redfish remain a hot target any time of year; bull reds can be found off the beaches from fall through mid-February. In backwater areas, smaller redfish take jerkbaits, twitchbaits and live shrimp.

As the water warms, Spanish mackerel and pompano school along the beaches and in the inlets. Cast sand fleas, peeled shrimp, ghost shrimp or Fishbites to the pompano; the mackerel eat just about anything.

Spring also ushers in migrating cobia, and the first king mackerel appear nearshore. Kingfish linger through the summer; captains bump-troll live baits or troll spoons and diving plugs.

May signals mayhem. “May is phenomenal on everything,” Vecsey says. “The trout are coming on to spawn on the full moon, and then bigger trout move onto the beachfront and barrier islands to the west.”

Flounder fishing hits its stride with paddletail or curlytail plastics and bull minnows taking good-size fish on the beachfront and in river mouths. Redfish school over the grass flats. Use a gold spoon or a wakebait to search for them, and then try topwater plugs, soft plastics or live baits.

In June, 80-to-90-pound tarpon migrate along the beaches, transitioning later to the bays. Popular baits include live alewives or Atlantic bumpers, but Vecsey likes sight-fishing them with plastic swimbaits or on fly tackle.

Falling water temperatures move bait along the beaches, sparking redfish frenzies within a mile of shore. Bull reds form massive schools at the surface that erupt into whitewater as the fish chase bait. Anglers sight-cast with large swimbaits, spoons or bucktails.

To enjoy Alabama’s multi-seasonal bounty, visitors can trailer their own boats; the region features numerous marinas and boat ramps. Non-boaters will find more than 100 charter operators in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores.

If you plan to keep some of your fish, check out the dozen or more seafood restaurants willing to cook your catch, such as Luna’s Eat & Drink or Mikee’s Seafood Restaurant.

If you’re traveling with family or planning a lay day to explore onshore, try one of the signature golf courses, experience a kangaroo or sloth encounter at the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo, or study beach construction techniques at Sand Castle University. The region also boasts a Civil War-era fort, a water park, and a state park with paved biking trails.

To celebrate the end of an adventurous day, take in a sunset on The Wharf’s Ferris Wheel, one of the largest in the Southeast. At only $8 per person, that’s another well-kept secret.

The post Alabama’s Hush-Hush Hotspot appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Spotted seatrout. Speckled trout. Specks. No matter the name, this inshore species is one of the most popular game fish on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. The IGFA all-tackle world record, caught on May 11, 1995, by Craig Carson at Fort Pierce, Florida, weighed a massive 17 pounds, 7 ounces. Behemoths like that are rare, but many light-tackle anglers dream of catching a true trophy pushing double-digits sometime during their lifetime. So we asked three experts to tell us what they do and look for when targeting that specific bucket list prize.

Catching Gator Florida Seatrout

“Growing up fishing the Indian River Lagoon, I got pretty spoiled. It wasn’t unusual to catch a dozen fish over 10 pounds every season,” says Capt. Ed Zyak. “This is where the world record was caught. There are still big fish left, just not in the numbers as before. It really depends on where you are, though. On Florida’s southwest coast, a 7-pounder is a really good fish. But I still get really excited breaking that 10-pound mark.”

Zyak looks for out of the way places near Ft. Pierce that don’t get a lot of traffic, preferably on a new moon. Small shallow spots adjacent to deeper water, like the backside of a bar, are the focus of his attention. He prefers to get out of the boat to wade on the last of the falling and first of the incoming tides, which concentrates the bait. Zyak watches for telltale signs like minnows stacked up, the presence of big mullet, birds feeding and water funneling through the zone.

“Figuring out water flow is important,” Zyak says. “I’ll often kick up a little sand to gauge the current. You have to adjust the presentation according to the conditions, but typically I’ll cast a jerk bait or shrimp up-tide and let it sweep parallel to the bait, using a twitch-and-short-pause retrieve. The strikes usually come on the pause. I’ll stand still and pick a spot apart for an hour. The seatrout settle down and forget you’re even there, especially with long casts. That requires confidence and patience. You’re not trying to catch 30 fish, you’re looking for one or two chances at a trophy and that means a slow, methodical approach.”

Florida Seatrout Fishing Gear

Here’s what Capt. Ed Zyak, of Florida’s Indian River Lagoon, recommends:

• Favorite Months: April & May
• Rods: 7.5’ Medium spin rod with extra fast action
• Reels: 4000 class spin
• Line: 10-pound braided line, 30- to 40-pound test fluorocarbon leader
• Lures: 3-inch shad or paddles tails; 1/4-ounce artificial shrimp; Shimano Coltsniper topwater plugs
• Bait: Live pilchards
• Tip: “Patience and silence are the keys. Slow down, pay attention to the conditions and pick a spot apart.”

Giant Gulf Coast Spotted Seatrout

“I didn’t actually weigh any of my three biggest fish,” explains Capt. Richard Rutland. “I measured and released them as quickly as possible. If it takes two hands to pick one up, that’s a big seatrout for the central Gulf. They’re usually pushing 30 inches and up to nine pounds.”

Rutland often finds big cooperative fish in early December. He targets the tidal rivers off Mobile Bay where the deeper channels offer sanctuary from the cold. As the sun warms the adjacent flats, the trout will come up to warm and feed in the shallows. In deeper water he cranks the reel slowly and steadily with an occasional twitch to add action to the lure.

April and May are the big spawning months and Rutland prefers to fish right before or after the full moon when large females are active. His three warm-water zones are grass flats, oyster bars/shells and sand bars along the beach.

“I’m always wading whenever I can,” he says. “It’s much quieter and stealthy, so you have a better chance. I’m also more aggressive with my presentation when it’s warm. I’ll whack, whack the lure, let it flutter and then repeat at a faster pace to trigger reactionary strikes.”

Rutland says the weaker tides aren’t as much a factor in his region, as long as the fish have enough water to feel comfortable. If he’s in the boat with clients, he aligns with the wind and current to drift and reach prime zones with long casts.

Rutland’s go-to lure is a soft-plastic jerk bait made by PureFlats. The Slick has a long tail rigged with an Owner swimbait hook plain or slightly weighed. Natural colors top the list, but he will switch to brighter patterns for contrast in cloudy water. For live bait, it’s croakers, finger mullet or small menhaden free-lined on a 2/0 kahle hook.

“You have to be very, very patient to target big fish,” he adds. “You might only get four or five bites all day long. Catching one is a waiting game.”

Gulf Coast Seatrout Fishing Gear

Capt. Richard Rutland, of Dauphin Island and Mobile Bay, Alabama, recommends:

• Favorite Months: Second week of December, April & May
• Rods: 7.5’ baitcaster with soft tip and action
• Reels: 3000 class baitcasting reel
• Line: 30-pound braided line with 15- to 20-pound fluorocarbon leader
• Lures: Pure Flats The Slick jerk bait with Owner 4/0 Beast worm hook
• Bait: Live croaker, finger mullet
• Tip: “It’s always about distance and not alerting the fish. I try to cast as far as I can to cover more water and discern feeding patterns.”

Trophy Texas Seatrout Fishing

“Laguna Madre and Baffin Bay are hyper-saline systems that grow huge fish,” says Capt. Joe Farah. “But those fish are also very aware of their surroundings, so any boat noise or pressure wave puts them on alert. So whether you’re wading or drifting you have to stalk quietly and not give away your presence.”

Farah keys in on specific types of habitat when targeting large trout. He concentrates on small areas, usually 300 yards in size or less, quick access to deep water for escape, mud and sand, seagrasses and shell.

“I always watch for baitfish and birds. Terns, laughing gulls and heron will be after finger mullet. Pelicans will focus on shad, while sand pipers are looking for clams and eels. Find all those and you’ve got a big trout buffet.”

Farah prefers to cast into the wind, since resting trout will be facing the wind and current. That approach keeps him in the fish’s blind spot and brings the lure into their vision, where they can assess and kill the prey.

In February and March he typically throws a 5.5 jerk bait with 1/16-oz. jig head in tequila sunrise, dark black and red for fish warming in the shallow grass. In November, as the water starts to cool, there’s a late spawn and he switches to a rainbow trout-colored swim bait with 1/8-oz. jig to mimic the shad. He adds large topwater plugs to the mix in the spring and fall.

“You have to make every cast count. That’s why I use plugs in bright colors to track and detect any swipes or blow-ups. But I work them extremely slow, with short pauses to let them sit and roll in the waves to mimic an injured, dying bait. It often takes three minutes to retrieve a lure. The idea is putting a victim in the hunting zone. A trophy trout is extremely smart and wary. If something doesn’t look right, Old Google Eyes is going to say, ‘Nope, not this one.’”

Texas Seatrout Fishing Gear

Capt. Joe Farah, of Baffin Bay and Laguna Madre, Texas, recommends:

• Favorite Months: February, April, May, November
• Rods: 7’ medium fast spin
• Reels: 3000 class spin
• Line: 15-pound braid with 30-pound-test monofilament leaders for stretch
• Lures: MirrOlures or Heddons in bright colors for visibility; 4-inch swim bait in rainbow trout, jerk shads in natural colors with 1/16- to 3/8-oz. short shank jigheads
• Bait: Live shrimp under popping cork in the spring, summer months live croaker and piggy perch
• Tip: “Trophy trout fishing is like hunting. You don’t catch big ones catching numbers. You have to concentrate on spots that only hold big fish.”

The post Get Stealthy to Catch Giant Seatrout appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Fish regulators will close the gag grouper season early this year in federal waters, leaving anglers scrambling to get in one last trip or two during any favorable weather windows. In South Atlantic federal waters, the gag grouper season closes on Oct. 23. For Gulf anglers, the gag season ends Oct. 19 in federal waters. The state of Florida will mirror federal regulations, closing state waters to gag grouper fishing on the same days in October.

“It’s been a good year for gag grouper,” says Capt. Jarrod Tuttle, of Driftwood Charters in Daytona Beach, Florida. “Fishing also gets better when its colder, as the grouper move in a bit closer. There are going to be some angry anglers about the early closure.”

In years past, recreational anglers blazed offshore, chasing oversized gag grouper late into the year. In the southeast, the winter months were prime time for bottom fishing, all the way up to December.

“This will be the first time that the recreational season has closed early for Gag in the South Atlantic,” says Kim Iverson, public information officer for the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council. “This year’s closures for both the recreational and commercial sectors are due to the reduction catch limits. There’s also the annual spawning season closure for shallow water grouper in South Atlantic federal waters January 1 through April 30.”

The Gulf federal recreational gag season in the recent past, including 2021 and 2022, started on June 1 and was open until the end of the year, points out Dan Luers, with NOAA Fisheries. But gag grouper are currently undergoing overfishing in Atlantic and Gulf waters, according to NOAA, leading to tightened management plans and interim measures.

“I will 100 percent lose charters over the early closure,” says Capt. Ryan Harrington, of No Bananas Sportfishing in Tampa Bay, Florida. “Already, I’ve had about a dozen people cancel. Who knows how many more would have booked if the season was open until Dec 31.”

Harrington mentioned he’s noticing good numbers of gag grouper, especially inshore.  

“I fish for them year-round as bycatch,” he said. “I have seen as many this year as I have any other year. I’ve actually seen more of the small juvenile females on the flats than previously. I’m catching 6 to 12 gags on artificials every charter while targeting seatrout.”

Gag Grouper Rebuilding Plans

The Gulf gag grouper rebuilding plan is part of Amendment 56 to the Fishery Management Plan, developed by the Gulf Council. The Southeast Fishery Science Center calculated that 2023’s Gulf catch limit must not surpass 661,901 pounds to be consistent with Amendment 56’s timeline. (Amendment 56 has not officially been implemented yet, but NOAA Fisheries is required to implement the amendment by January 26, 2024.)

In the Atlantic, Amendment 53 to the Snapper Grouper Fishery Management Plan incorporates gag grouper’s rebuilding guidelines, running from 2023 to 2032. For 2023, the total annual catch limit is equal to the acceptable biological catch of 175,632 pounds gutted weight.

The post Gag Grouper Season Closes Early in October appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

On August 23, 2023, a young Florida angler with an adventurous spirit and a fondness for catching big fish on the smallest of vessels has achieved a personal milestone off the Gulf coast: he caught, fought, and boated a 100-pound swordfish from a personal watercraft.

Emmanuel Williams, 23, of Miami, drove 14 hours to Venice, Louisiana, to get on the water at sun-up on August 20. He then motored 20 miles to open water and another 20 to the fishing grounds on his 12-foot Sea-Doo FishPro Trophy, a craft built for fishing. He was on a quest to make good on a plan he had announced four years earlier: to be the first person to catch a sword from a PWC.

A Swordfishing Group Effort

Williams was accompanied by his friend Capt. Sebastian Noel on the trip. In Venice, they connected with Capt. Blake Rigby, who provided the local know-how and accompanied Williams and Noel from his boat. Tyler Fischer was the fourth member of the party, shooting content as the adventure unfolded.

“Capt. Blake got us rigged up, and Sebastian hopped on the ‘ski with me,” he recalled. “We sent our bait down to about 1,400 feet of water.” They were using a 12/0 J-hook tipped with a squid, 60-pound braid with a 150-foot, 250-pound leader, a Shimano Talica 50 and a Check’n Bottom custom rod. The wait began, and the anglers’ patience was tested.

“I was pretty anxious and really wanted to get this fish,” Williams said. “After a couple hours of waiting morale got a little low, but we ground it out, and then we got that bite and cranked down on that fish. I was super excited to be locked in battle with this fish.”

The lead came to the rod and was removed. “Now we were directly connected with that fish. I told Sebastian, get ready with that gaff, this is our time, this is our moment. We saw that white glow of the fish coming up. I’m screaming at Sebastian, ‘Stick him, stick him, stick him!’ I couldn’t fathom that fish getting away.”

The Swordfish End Game

It did not get away. “Sebastian put the first gaff in him. I followed up with the second gaff, and then the fish realized what was happening and went absolutely ballistic — thrashing its bill, swinging its tail non-stop, and literally pulling the Sea-Doo in circles.

“And then that was it,” he said. “We definitely rejoiced. We were all very happy. As far as I know this was the first swordfish ever landed on a PWC, and it was documented.” They transferred the fish to Rigby’s cooler and began the long run back to their houseboat in Venice. The sea was flat while they fished, but by 10 a.m., “it was rolling 3 to fives the whole way,” he said. “But it wasn’t a bad ride home, knowing we completed the mission.” They cleaned and filleted the fish.

Williams is a content creator who works with Sea-Doo, Salt Life, and XTRATUF, and his YouTube channel is not to be missed. Fishing from a PWC is a personal choice that feels closer to the sea and the fish, he said.

The Allure of PWC Fishing

“I could definitely get a boat if I wanted to,” he said. “The first time I ever fished offshore was on a PWC. I just fell in love with the process and the challenge. It’s another kind of connection with the water, and it’s more intimate. There’s definitely more of a challenge to it. Just the weather — PWCs can handle super rough weather, but it’s a lot when you’re mixing weather with fishing.

“Space is a thing — you can’t bring a whole arsenal of rods. But in other ways, you kind of have an advantage, because if I happen to see, say, a school of tuna, I can roll up on them more quietly than a boat could.”

Twenty-three is young to have achieved a major goal, but Williams has further aspirations, all from the seat of the Sea-Doo.

“I have a lot of big plans when it comes to fishing,” he said. “I just want to travel and catch unique fish. I definitely want to do big tuna, both yellowfin and bluefin, and black and blue marlin. Those are the next fish I’m going after.”

You can see Williams’ catch the first-ever swordfish on a personal watercraft in this video on iBelongOutdoors.

The post First Ever Swordfish Caught on a Jet Ski appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Only our federal government could come up with a rule that mandated the removal of wildlife habitat in a time when it concurrently, actively sought to enhance wildlife habitat. Ultimately, optimistically, that confusing tide was turned 40 years ago with creation of the Rigs to Reefs program.

It’s been nearly 70 years since the first offshore oil production platform went online in the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, thanks to tremendous foresight and investment on the parts of major oil-and-gas producers, that number climbed from one to more than 7,000 rigs — and then declined as wells beneath many of those platforms dried up, which is their inescapable fate.

Rigs to Reefs

As some wells became unprofitable, our government forced drillers to dismantle and remove the platforms and any evidence thereof, leaving nothing but an acre or two of bare-sand bottom. And as quickly as ridiculous amounts of money and labor were invested to deconstruct these structures and haul them as scrap to shore, so also disappeared the tremendous amount of marine life each of them supported.

Fast-forward to 1979, when Florida became the first state to convert a non-productive, outer continental-shelf platform into, well, what it was all along — an artificial reef. And forward again to 1983, when the Minerals Management Service came onboard with support for what’s now called the Rigs to Reefs and then to 1984, when the National Fishing Enhancement Act embraced Rigs to Reefs in support of marine life off the shores of all five Gulf states.

The Gulf of Mexico Needs Artificial Reefs

Exclusive of its only active, deep-water coral reef, the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary off Texas, the Gulf provides little anomalous structure for its plentiful fisheries. A pile of rocks here, a ledge or sunken shrimp boat there, but otherwise little life-supporting structure.  

Almost anything that breaks up a seascape quite desert-like except that it’s covered in water becomes refuge for any creature that finds it. Fish and corals and sponges, turtles and marine mammals all gather around whatever they can find in hope either of eating or avoiding being eaten.

That “almost anything,” historically and not always lawfully, has included everything from washing machines and refrigerators to abandoned cars, retired ships and even military tanks. Sometimes these items were placed with permission and permits, and other times they “accidentally” fell off the sterns of boats that left port under cover of darkness.

A Worldwide Model for Artificial Reefs

However, wherever and whenever, though, all those structures drew and held fish. And now, in combination with other programs that plant smaller concrete structures and still sink decommissioned ships, Rigs to Reefs is gaining the traction it has long deserved toward becoming the benchmark against which artificial reefs worldwide might be measured.

Rather than entirely remove non-productive rigs within a year, which remains federal rule despite astronomical cost to drillers and ongoing effort to have it dismissed, MMS now recognizes Rigs to Reefs as a legitimate alternative and allows three ways to accomplish the conversion.

NOTE: Not every non-productive platform is eligible for the program. For various, legitimate reasons, some structures need to come out. But most, overwhelmingly most, are candidates for conversion under Rigs to Reefs.

How Rigs Are Turned Into Reefs

• The first approved and least complicated strategy is to simply topple the structure in place, which is done with explosives planted several meters beneath the gulf floor to minimize damage to resident marine life.
• The second involves divers cutting enough off the top portion of the structure so that the remainder doesn’t interfere with marine traffic, then towing that top half elsewhere, essentially creating a second structure.
• The third tactic is to release the entire structure from the sea floor, haul it to a more desirable location, then lay it on its side.

Under any of these plans, the savings to oil companies are potentially millions per platform. The benefit to marine life, in perpetuity, is incalculable. As of December 2021, the number of rigs turned to reefs sat at 573. And typically, according to a Coastal Marine Institute study, each of those reefs supports roughly 12,000 to 14,000 fish.  

The Future of Rigs to Reefs

Effort is underway now among many conservation groups, including state chapters of Coastal Conservation Association, to have our Congress eliminate or at least pause the antiquated and short-sighted law the calls for non-productive platforms to be hauled to shore in a year. The paperwork for Rigs to Reef participation takes considerable time. And of all the issues facing Congress now, this one should generate the least division among senators and representatives of opposing politics.

Rigs to Reefs benefits everyone who enjoys deep-water fishing and diving and provides critical habitat, if those numbers are right, to about eight million fish and countless other marine animals. Within a government rife with confusing and sometimes curious laws, Rigs to Reefs cuts right through the red tape between Washington to effectively beautify and enhance the deep-blue Gulf of Mexico.

The post Making the Case for Easier Rigs to Reefs appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.