You’ll find anglers on bridges and beaches, bait shops open long before dawn, big tackle stores that carry enough gear to outfit a fleet of sport-fishers, and a line-up of fishing tournaments year-round. Numbers tell the story, too.

Jacksonville has the highest rate, per capita, of fishing license holders of the four biggest Florida metropolitan areas. That beats Tampa-St. Pete, Orlando, and Miami-Fort Lauderdale. Jacksonville takes the crown for the hardest-fishing big city in Florida.

The region’s rivers, maze-like marshes, bays, the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), jetties, beaches, and offshore grounds form a network of waters unlike any other in Florida. Two spring scenarios to target are shallow-water redfish and trout, and offshore, schools of migrating dolphin swarming at the Ledge.

Catch Seatrout and Redfish in Jacksonville

Big tides breathe life into Jacksonville’s extensive marsh-and-creek system.

“We have a 5-foot tidal swing, on average, every 6 hours, so the locations to fish are constantly changing,” says Capt. Buzz Brannon, who’s guided anglers in Jacksonville for more than two decades.  He runs an 18-foot Beavertail Vengeance in the shallows, stalking reds, trout, flounder, and other species on spin and fly. One of his favorite bites is for “hillbilly bonefish,” what some folks call redfish when they get them in the grass on big tides, he says.

For seatrout, Brannon likes dusk and dawn, low-light times. In the spring, when the finger mullet show up, both trout and redfish take topwater lures. “Anything with a hard edge along the St. Johns will be holding mullet,” he says.

Fishing the city’s infrastructure — bridges, docks, seawalls, and industrial installations along the water (where legally accessible) — produces a variety of species. Both natural and manmade habitats hold good fish in Jacksonville, one of the city’s many surprises for visiting anglers.

It’s been the best year of redfishing Brannon has seen for quite some time. In 2012, an increase in the redfish bag limit to 2 fish per person took a toll on the redfish. In September 2022, the bag limit was lowered back to one redfish per person, and since then, the fishing has been steadily improving, Brannon says.

The nourishment of those rich waters flowing in the St. Johns generates and draws abundant life to the nearshore and offshore waters, including a pelagic fishery that’s been a standout hotspot in recent years— the Ledge.

Big Dolphin off Jacksonville

About 55 to 65 miles off Jacksonville, depending on the marina’s location, the continental shelf slopes down from 120-foot depths and then drops off to 175 feet deep — the Ledge. The Gulf Stream runs nearby, and when its warm waters or any of its warm eddies circulate over the Ledge’s structure, prey, and predators get drawn into those dynamic flows. In winter, these waters hold good numbers of big wahoo, ranging up to 70 and 100 pounds, often caught high-speed trolling and more recently, Capt. Tim Altman of Hoodoo Charters says, by live-baiting.

“Guys are having incredible days for wahoo at the Ledge slow-trolling live baits like blue runners and bonito,” says Altman, a multiple-time wahoo tournament winner and a fanatic for those fish.

Capt. Altman runs 11-hour charter trips to the Ledge for pelagics including wahoo and dolphin aboard his Saltwater Challenge, a 36-foot Contender with triple Mercurys. In April, the game switches to catching big dolphin.

“We’ve crushed it the last few years for big dolphin at the Ledge, lots of them,” he says. “We’ll start going out for them between April 12 and 15, and the biggest fish are early in the year. We get a good month and a half of solid dolphin fishing.”

His good news about dolphin fishing may surprise people who’ve heard about a lack of fish in recent years around South Florida and the Keys.

“I’m aware that South Florida has seen a real decline in their dolphin fishing, especially around Key West, Marathon, and Miami. I can’t explain the difference in Northeast and South Florida fishing,” Altman says. “The old-school guys say the migratory pattern for yellowfin tuna has changed, so maybe that’s the case with dolphin, too, or maybe the currents have changed.”

Dolphin at the Ledge

Altman and his crew leave his Amelia Island marina at 5 a.m. and head out to the Ledge for an 11-hour trip. He’ll check RipCharts on his phone and screenshot the image of the temperature breaks at the Ledge. On his Simrad he also has SirrusXM weather for sea surface temperature readings offshore. He’s looking for temperature breaks with ocean water temps 76 degrees and warmer, weed lines, and edges.

“During dolphin season, as we get near the Ledge, I’ll put out small Nomads or a horse ballyhoo skirted with an Ilander on a planer with wire to target wahoo. Beyond the Ledge, we’ll run everything on the surface.

“Some days skirted stuff works, but I don’t believe there’s anything more effective for dolphin than a properly rigged, chin-weighted, split-bill ballyhoo,” he says. “When you see that big dolphin coming, or if you get a hit, you free spool it for 15 to 25 seconds, and I’m telling you that works.”

The dolphin come through in packs, and between times Altman and crew can also bottom fish for triggers, snapper, grouper, or whatever’s in season. They’ll likely have sardines in the livewell and they’ll chum dolphin by their boat with cuttlefish or squid, keeping a lookout, ready to throw a live bait to any big fish coming to the boat.

“You’ve got to be ready for those big fish. You’ll have a bunch of schoolies, the boat’s kicked out of gear and you’re live-baiting. The fish get all around you. Then you’ll see the dolphin scatter and that’s indicative of a shark or a big dolphin coming in to tear them up. I’ll tell you it’s incredible when you see that big dolphin coming through the water to you. Man, that’s fun.”

Jacksonville Florida Fishing Captains

• Capt. Tim Altman, Hoodoo Charters, (904) 859-6314, www.hoodoocharters.com
• Capt. Buzz Brannon, Northeast Florida Angling, (904) 570-7878, www.northeastfloridaangling.com

Bait Stores

•             B & M Bait & Tackle, Jacksonville, (904) 249-3933
•             Brown’s Creek Bait & Tackle, Jacksonville, (904) 757-1600
•             FishBites Trading Post, St. Augustine, (904) 217-8012

Note: Special thanks to the FWC and its licensing department for the analysis of its data on fishing license holders by municipality across the entire state of Florida.

The post The Hardest-Fishing City in Florida 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.

Spend much time on the waters of North Carolina’s Crystal Coast and the origins of that moniker should be pretty clear. The waters here are some of the clearest in the Mid-Atlantic. The Crystal Coast, what can be described as the Southern Outer Banks, is a designation for roughly 85 miles of beaches (56 of which are protected) and coastal towns from the New River north to Cape Lookout. This includes Beaufort, Morehead City and the Cape Lookout National Seashore.

There’s no shortage of fishing opportunities on the Crystal Coast. Many are seasonal, but whatever the season, there are fish to be caught. While many destinations require bringing or hiring a boat, the coast of North Carolina boasts some of the world’s best surf fishing. Among the many species taken on beaches here, the two high-status game fish are red drum and striped bass. Very large reds prowl along the beaches in the fall. How big? Consider the IGFA all-tackle world record that angler David Deuel landed on an Outer Banks beach in November, 1984 — a fish weighing an extraordinary 94 pounds, 2 ounces.

Those without a boat can also hit the piers that jut out 1,000 feet from the beach into the ocean — the Bogue Inlet Pier (at Emerald Isle) and the Oceanana Fishing Pier (at Atlantic Beach). In addition to the many species that surfcasters catch, pier anglers target red drum, cobia and kingfish spring through fall, as well as croaker, bluefish, flounder and more.

Yet another land-based fishery involves wading in inshore waters, but these waters are much more accessible to those with skiffs or kayaks. Kayakers can access Back Sound and Bogue Sound from Fort Macon State Park and several spots around Harkers Island.

Located near the easternmost protrusion of the Outer Banks, the Crystal Coast offers a relatively easy run to the Gulf Stream and blue water often teeming with prized game fish. The list of summer-time targets includes marlins (blues and whites), sailfish, mahi, wahoo, tunas (yellowfin and blackfin) and more coastal species such as cobia, snapper, amberjack and kingfish.

One of the most exciting cold-weather fisheries here sees larger charter and seaworthy private boats running out to fish just a few miles off the Outer Banks for huge bluefin tuna. Bluefin approaching the grander mark have been taken on sport-fishing boats, and tuna larger than 1,000 pounds have been caught commercially. The past season, in fact, was one of the best ever, and included not only giant bluefin but those of a more modest size (relatively speaking). While not as coveted as bluefin, blackfin tuna can be caught in numbers here at times and in the winter will run 25 to 30 pounds — large for the species.

Tournament fishing is big on the Crystal Coast; you’ll find offshore, inshore and surf events here. Notably this includes one of the fishing world’s premier tournaments, the Big Rock Blue Marlin, as well as other billfish tournaments in the summer. The fall schedule includes plenty of events for king mackerel.

Planning a Trip

When to Go: Everyone wants to be here in the summer. That translates into lots of visitors, higher rates, busier roads. But it is a wonderful time of year to enjoy the beaches and offshore variety, along with calmer seas. Just book far in advance, as much as a year ahead. On the other hand, fall and winter offer special fisheries — big drum in the surf and then giant bluefin just offshore — at a time when visitors find things considerably more laid-back and less crowded here. Certainly, things get windier in mid-fall and winter; those who want to fish beyond the inlets would be wise to plan to stay at least a week, looking for a calm day or two.

Where to Go and How to Get There: The closest major airport is in New Bern (EWN), just over 30 miles away, served by a number of major carriers. Raleigh-Durham International Airport is just under three hours by car. More distant air options include international airports in Norfolk, Virginia (NIA), or in Charlotte (CLT), about a 4- or 5-hour drive, respectively. Many choose to drive to the Southern Outer Banks. From Atlanta, figure nearly eight hours drive time; from Boston, about 13 hours.

What to Expect: For visiting anglers, the infrastructure is generous, with plenty of inshore guides, offshore charter, launch sites and marinas. Also, take advantage of local bait and tackle shops, often the best source of information, especially for surf and jetty anglers. Private boaters fishing offshore will need a boat large and seaworthy enough to negotiate Bogue and Beaufort inlets; like all inlets, they can be tricky. Check the shoaling alerts online for up-to-date information when planning routes.

Crystal Coast accommodations are many and varied from budget (hard to find in high season) to five-star. Check with various local real estate brokers since they handle vacation rentals for the many amazing ocean-front homes along this coast.

Families who join anglers here need not be bored. Besides enjoying the endless Cape Lookout National Seashore beaches, visitors can paddleboard and kayak inshore waterways and marshes; climb to the top of the iconic Cape Lookout Lighthouse (Wednesday through Sunday); make historical visits to Beaufort’s North Carolina Maritime Museum and to Fort Macon; see the famed wild horses of Shackleford Banks Island; hike the Croatan National Forest; and plenty more.

Helpful Links

• The Crystal Coast
• Crystal Coast Visitors’ Guide

The post North Carolina’s Crystal Coast is a Gem appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Gorgeous sugar-sand beaches, swaying palm trees, turquoise waters, and upscale resorts are often associated with fishing paradises — but you’ll find none of that in Venice, Louisiana. Rather, you’ll find a few homes on stilts in an unincorporated community (population 162 per 2020 census) and a dirty skyline dominated by the oil and petrochemical industries’ refineries, plants, storage tanks, oil derricks, chimneys and tall flare stacks, spouting burn-off flames like enormous torches. It’s a backdrop few would call appealing.

Yet visitors travel to this industrial area at the southernmost end of the road in Plaquemines Parish, a two-hour drive south of New Orleans. Why? Must be a mighty big draw to get ‘em down there.

The answer, in a word, is fishing. For some game fish species, the fishing here ranks as some of the best in the world. In these productive waters, around and beyond the mouth of the Mississippi River, red and yellow rule. That is, red drum both inshore and nearshore; yellowfin tuna in blue water around deep oil platforms. There’s no shortage of guides to fish redfish and more from large, fast bay boats. Likewise, charter captains in big, multi-engine center console boats (huge catamarans are particularly popular) promise fast access out the river and to blue water where great numbers of oil rigs serve as FADs teeming with baitfish and predators — besides pelagic big-game fish, the list includes red snapper, grey snapper, cobia, tripletail, jacks (amber, almacos, crevalles), groupers and more.

Venice, in essence, sticks out into the Gulf of Mexico. It’s surrounded by fishing grounds on all sides. For anglers that’s a good thing, except when it’s a bad thing: when hurricanes prowl the Gulf in late summer and fall. Since 1930, more than 30 named storms have hit southern Louisiana. Some major blows like Camille in 1969 and Katrina in 2005 left Venice devastated to the tune of $108 billion, with more than 1,500 dead. Yet Venice always comes back, as do fishermen who can’t stay away.

It’s worth noting that while Venice is uniquely situated in the Gulf, a number of small communities across southern Louisiana are home to outstanding inshore and offshore fisheries as well, such as Grand Isle, Lake Charles, Port Fourchon and many others.

Planning a Trip

When to Go: Two certainties are that you can find good fishing any month of the year, and that winter is likely to be windy. Still, winter can be a good time to fish offshore when conditions permit, not only for really big tuna but large wahoo in numbers around the famed Midnight Lump (a salt dome rising to 200 feet, known as the Sackett Bank on NOAA charts). Summer offers a good shot at marlin, as well as yellowfin and blackfin tunas, plus mahi.

Redfish action can be great throughout the year. While summer months can be torrid, in the heat of summer, a good guide can get anglers back into clear “ponds” in backcountry shallows to sight-cast to laid-up reds. October is hard to beat for fishing in Venice. For one thing, normally in October the really big bull reds (30 to 40 pounds) move into inshore waters to join the smaller school fish. And offshore, skippers can fish the shrimp boats for big yellowfin and blackfin for non-stop action. Swordfish are caught here year-round, though spring through early summer is peak time.

Where to Go and How to Get There: As noted above, getting here is simple indeed. Whether in a rental car from New Orleans’ Louis Armstrong International Airport or driving down, you’ll take the only highway you can take — Louisiana 23 south through Belle Chasse (which is about a half hour in light traffic south of the airport) then another 65 miles (just over an hour) down to Venice.

What to Expect: You’ll find many charter operations in Venice that fish blue water and also nearshore Delta areas, plus guide services fish “the marsh,” as inshore waters are widely known. As for accommodations, they’re rather limited. Many fishing operations either have their own accommodations (rooms, sometimes entire houseboats) or work with others who have houses locally, and set up their clients routinely as part of their packages. Many of the charter operators who provide housing also arrange meals. With any luck, you’ll enjoy such an arrangement and, often, that means really unforgettable Cajun cooking.

A dependable all-in-one option is Cypress Cove Marina & Lodge. Full marina and launch ramp are available, plus 45 hotel rooms and limited numbers of townhome rentals. A host of inshore and offshore captains run out of Cypress Cove, so there’s no problem finding a captain specializing in tripletail, redfish, speckled trout, swordfish or yellowfin tuna.

Out-of-state anglers will need a non-resident guide/charter fishing license; private boaters fishing offshore must have a free Recreational Offshore Landing Permit. Other than fishing in Venice there’s not a lot to do, though duck hunting in the fall is an option for some.

Helpful Links

• Visit Louisiana
• Explore Louisiana
• Louisiana’s Delta Country
• Cypress Cove Marina
• Venice Marina
• Journey South Outfitters – Husband-and-wife captains Eric and Moe Newman are topnotch for inshore or offshore, with boats to match, with a small lodge just out of town. Also, Eric worked as a New Orleans chef for years.
• Super Strike Charters – Capt. Damon McKnight has been taking anglers out of Venice for 20 years; his clients stay in houseboats or at Cypress Cove Lodge.
• Redfish Lodge – Capt. Mike Frenette has been known for fishing these inshore waters for decades. The small lodge he runs with wife Lori, sits right in the Venice waterfront near the marina.

The post The Fishing Capital of the Gulf appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

The Charleston area offers history, good food and good fishing, all in abundance. Visitors can take advantage of all three at any time, though the fishing is the most variable by season and conditions. One of the most appealing attributes of fishing the Charleston area is its variety of opportunities.

Inshore waters offer the three mainstays — redfish, seatrout and flounder — in the shallow mud and harder grass flats. Low-country sight-casting excitement on fly and light tackle becomes more likely in cold weather when waters clear. While shallow-water fish aren’t likely to be monsters, the harbor’s deep, flowing waters give anglers a great shot at big bull reds on bait or jigs, though you’ll want to stow the ultra-light gear here. Lots of big bull sharks hang around and other species as well.

Head 40 or 50 miles offshore to either drift-and-jig for grouper and more (including various species of snapper, amberjack, African pompano and blackfin tuna) or put out lines to troll for blue-water big game — wahoo, billfish, mahi. No doubt, there’s tremendous potential when fishing speed jigs and slow-pitch jigs over even minimal ledges and rockpiles offshore here. Getting to these bottom fish grounds requires a longer run than some anglers care to make, which may help explain the consistent productivity. It’s also well worth keeping in mind the outstanding swordfish fishery that has developed out of Charleston. Anglers fish Edisto Banks to the Charleston Bump, day and night, catching swords to 500 pounds and more.

A point of interest: This very fishy area is home to two major fishing-tackle manufacturers — Shimano and Z-Man.

Planning a Trip

When to Go: You can find rewarding action any month of year. But it’s worth understanding some seasonal differences that can help you determine what species you’ll target and how. In cold winter months, inshore waters become clear, and spotting schools of reds is feasible, but they’re more lethargic and getting them to eat can be trickier (fish “low and slow” in local parlance). When waters warm, redfish will move onto mud and hard-bottom grass flats to feed; look for fins, tails and wakes. Summer’s a great time to fish the harbor for big bull reds. Offshore fishing is worthwhile anytime the weather permits it — that’s a bit iffier in the winter. Also, be aware of the annual closure for the harvest of grouper. Plus, red snapper remain closed in federal waters all year at the time of this writing.

Where to Go and How to Get There: Many major airlines fly into Charleston International Airport daily. For those driving, Charleston is a mere hour or so east of Interstate 95.

What to Expect: The number of inshore guides and offshore charters gives anglers plenty of choice. One great option is RedFin Charters. The wide-ranging charter operation offers inshore options for redfish and trout, but also nearshore, offshore, shark and fly-fishing trips. They likely have you covered for any species you want to target it in the area.

Besides the ever-popular redfish, fishing inshore and the harbor holds the promise of other species: trout, flounder, sheepshead, black drum, tarpon, sharks (bull, blacktip, bonnethead), Spanish mackerel, bluefish, jacks and ladyfish. If fishing with a licensed guide, you’ll need no separate fishing license; otherwise, obtain your South Carolina license.

Far from being limited to fishing, Charleston is a southern center of history and culture. Among the “other” activities might be a visit to the Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum and the South Carolina Aquarium, a walk along Waterfront Park or King Street, or a visit to any of several beaches. You’ll find accommodations from budget to five-star, and fabulous restaurants. Never visit Charleston without indulging in a local favorite: she-crab soup.

Helpful Links

• RedFin Charters
• Charleston Area Visitor Bureau

The post High Times in the Holy City appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

The Not So Common Permit

For permit addicts, the Florida Keys is a special place. But the holy grail is somewhere else entirely: the Seychelles. The Indo-Pacific permit, with its yellow-tipped fins, thrives here on the remote Poivre and St. Joseph atolls. Sometimes called the snubnose pompano, it’s a top-five fish for any globe-trotting flats fly angler.

But this Indian Ocean adventure is not for the weak, requiring plenty of planning and travel to get there. Then, it’s wade-fishing all day on shallow flats, searching for a fish known to laugh at a perfectly placed crab fly. Once you hook and hold one, all that frustration disappears. —Sam Hudson

In Honor of the Toughness of Tarpon

Tarpon are survivors. After all, they’ve been swimming the seas since dinosaurs roamed the earth. They can live more than 70 years. How have tarpon survived for so long when so many other species have gone extinct? It’s their ability to survive in a wide variety of conditions, and on a wide variety of sustenance.

The silver king can live in full fresh or full salt water, but most important is its special ability to breathe air at the surface using a row of lunglike tissue in the swim bladder. As juvenile fish, this allows them to live in stagnant, low-oxygen waters with fewer predators and competition. Canals, ditches, ponds—waters that don’t connect to salt water for most of the year—are no problem for them.

And the juvies make do with whatever food they can forage in these backwaters. Baby tarpon are opportunistic feeders, eating ants, shrimp, crabs and fly larvae. In fact, in 2020, Bonefish & Tarpon Trust highlighted a study that looked at the diets of juvenile tarpon in seven Florida locations. The conclusion: Tarpon will eat whatever fits in their mouths. —Nick Roberts

Bonefish Slime Matters

Props to conservation organization Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, which recently launched the Save the Slime campaign to promote proper bonefish handling techniques, developed in collaboration with top guides and bonefish lodges. Poor handling can remove their protective mucus layer and leave them vulnerable to sharks after release.

The techniques boil down to this: Avoid touching the fish, and if you want to hold one for a quick photo, then do so without sun gloves and limit air exposure to less than 10 seconds. Research shows that a bonefish held out of water for longer than that is six times less likely to survive once released.

As the campaign slogan proclaims: “The important part isn’t how you catch them. It’s how you let them go.” —Nick Roberts

Pumpkins With Fins

Over my 40-plus years of feeding flies to redfish in five coastal states, little compares to the Louisiana marsh. The shallow-water, bull redfish in bright auburn hues are like nothing else in inshore fishing. I call Venice “the Pumpkin Patch” due to the color and size of the red drum willing to eat a fly any day of the year.

On my first cast to a string of 30-plus-pounders one November morning, I made the typical “Florida cast,” leading the oncoming fish by 5 feet. They were gliding slowly, pec fins out, glowing golden orange in the muddy water.

“Mike, pick up and go again. Give the lead fish a mustache,” urged Capt. Brian Esposito from the poling platform. I picked up my line and slapped my big, bushy streamer between the fish’s eyes. The take was immediate and explosive. I cleared my running line to the reel and held on as it towed the skiff. After a couple of bulldogging runs, Esposito staked the pole and grabbed the fish. It weighed 31 pounds.

“A pretty good one,” Esposito said. “But we’ll see bigger, I promise.”

And we did. The pumpkin parade went on all day—singles, pairs, small schools. Out of about 40 shots, we landed 30 or more reds.

This happens year-round in Louisiana, with the biggest fish common from fall through spring. I once fished with a guide on a January week when the Roseau cane lining the outer marsh was covered in ice all day, with highs in the upper 30s. And amazingly, the fish ate flies. So, book a Louisiana poling guide, dress right, and be damn sure to give ’em a mustache. Chances are you’ve fished for reds, but haven’t experienced anything like Louisiana’s Mississippi river mouth monsters. —Mike Conner

A Striped Bass Favorite: Sand Eels

Sand eels are one of the baits that cause stripers to abandon caution and venture into dangerously skinny water. Correctly known as a sand lance, these thin, eel-like fish burrow directly into the sand. While some stretches of the coast have sand eels all season long, fall brings in large schools that hug the shoreline, and stripers follow.

Schools of 20- to 30-pound stripers are often right on their heels, slipping along the lip of an open beach with their backs and pectoral fins cutting the surface, massive tails wagging back and forth. These feeding frenzies look like something out of a BBC wildlife documentary, and offer some of the most exciting fishing of the entire season. —Joe Albanese

The post What You Might Not Know About Your Favorite Flats Fish appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

“The fishing was so good, I could only fish two rods and I was getting worn out,” reported Capt. Kenny Louderback after a recent trip where he landed 23 giant redfish between 44 and 48 inches. “The day before we caught redfish up to 53 inches!”

Capt. Kenny Louderback was fishing shallow shoals at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay and along Fisherman Island on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. 

The day of the epic bite, he marked fish on his fishfinder in 30 feet of water and deployed the anchor. The deep hole was close to shore making a natural funnel for the redfish to travel into the surf zone. 

With two anglers steadily cranking in giant redfish, Louderback was busy baiting hooks, landing drum and reviving the released fish. “Before I release a redfish, I use a fish gripper to hold it in the water,” he explained. (Don’t hold a fish vertically with a lip gripper.) Once the fish swims on its own, he unclips the gripper and lets the red swim free. The captain laughed, “As soon as the bait hit the bottom, I’d have two more fish to release.”

How to Catch Chesapeake Bay’s Red Drum

Fishing with a whole or half hard crab on a 9/0 hook and 50-pound leader, Louderback uses a fish-finder rig with 8 to 10 ounces of lead. To fish the heavy rig and big bait, he utilizes a 6-foot boat rod and PENN Squall 20 spooled with 30-pound braided line. He threads a fish-finder slide over the mainline and ties the line to a swivel. The swivel is connected to one to three feet of 50-pound monofilament and the 9/0 circle hook. 

Up until recently, red drum fishing has been slow. Louderback reports cold water and bad weather are putting a damper on the red drum bite. “A hard northeast wind has caused the water temperature to fluctuate.” He sees 68 degrees one day and 64 degrees the next day. Since the water temperature started to stabilize, Louderback has had consistent action on big red drum. With the slow start, he hopes for a longer season as the water warms into the lower- to mid-70s.

In a couple weeks, Louderback will turn his attention to sight fishing for cobia and red drum. He searches the mouth of Chesapeake Bay looking for the schools of redfish and cobia swimming on the surface. When he spots fish, he casts a two-ounce bucktail or live eel with a medium-heavy spinning rod and reel. He looks for sight fishing to continue through summer and into early fall. 

Outer Banks Redfish Fishing Techniques

Farther south, North Carolina’s Outer Banks have been covered up with trophy red drum since February. “Red drum fishing is awesome,” said Capt. Tim Hagerich, from the Black Pearl Charters out of Hatteras Inlet. When I texted Hagerich for a fishing report, he replied, “I’m on a school of drum right now!”

Hagerich finds drum two ways. When the weather is clear and the seas calm, he heads into the ocean toward Diamond Shoals. Searching the shoals, he finds schools of drum in the clear water. “Sometimes the school has 2,000 fish,” he marveled.

Once he spots a school, Hagerich casts a 2-ounce bucktail toward the fish. “Jig the bucktail anywhere near the school and the fish will pile on,” he explained. 

Hagerich stopped using the ubiquitous rubber curly tail jig on his bucktail. “It takes too much time to fix the tail after catching a fish,” he complained. Hagerich said it’s more important to cast again while the school is nearby. “Bucktail color doesn’t matter, either,” he added.

Big Red and Black Drum Mixed Together

On a recent trip, Hagerich found big redfish mixed in with a school of large black drum. The water on Diamond Shoals was crystal clear and Hagerich spotted a school of black drum in 20 feet of water.

“Black drum won’t bite so I drove around the school four times and didn’t make a cast,” he recalled. Another captain took a chance and pulled a redfish out of the black school. Hagerich chuckles and said, “The moral of the story is don’t believe your eyes.”

Wind, What Wind? When the wind blows, Hagerich fishes behind the islands. “The harder the wind blows, the fishing gets better,” he said.

Focusing his efforts on Hatteras Inlet, Hagerich finds breaking waves on a shallow shoal and anchors his boat. He casts a chunk of mullet on a fish-finder rig into the breakers and along the deeper slough. Fishing in the wind is no problem: “We fished three days in 30-knot winds last week,” he said.

Hagerich expects drum fishing to remain good through the summer and into fall. As the water warms, he turns his attention to slot and over-slot redfish on the grass beds and shallow flats.

The post The Best Place to Catch Trophy Redfish appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Probably few things annoy an angler more than perfectly delivering a cast to a spot you know holds fish only to have the hook on your soft-plastic lure immediately snag some sea grass, a stick, an oyster bar or rocky bottom.

“If you throw a lure out in front of a fish and it gets hung up, you either have to rip it out of the grass and it runs right by the fish, or it’s hung up and a big, ol’ wad of grass spooks the fish,” says professional redfish tournament ­fisherman Mark Cowart, of Panama City Beach, Florida.

To avoid that, top anglers and guides rig their soft-plastic baits on hooks and jig heads to run weedless. The key is to essentially hide the hook point, a goal they achieve using a variety of hooks and other terminal tackle.

Hide The Hook in the Soft Plastic

Capt. Gary Dubiel of Oriental, North Carolina, is a Rapala pro staffer who fishes Storm’s 360GT Coastal soft plastics. The 360GTs feature slots in the belly and back so the hook point remains hidden, not protruding from the bait. The lures come pre-rigged with either a VMC Coastal Black jig head or a VMC Coastal Black Hook with Keel Weight.

Instead of fishing them on a jig head, where the hook would be exposed, Dubiel prefers the weighted hook, which he says is “fairly lightweight and designed primarily for fishing shallow grass flats in Florida. If you want to get deeper, you need to use a little bit heftier weight.” In that case, Dubiel rigs the lures on a VMC Heavy Duty Weighted Swimbait hook. The wide-gap hook features a locking spring that screws into the head of the bait and a weight on the shank. He uses 3/0 and 4/0 hooks, going bigger for thicker baits.

“I put the hook point into the body of the bait, and when it comes out, it actually sits in the groove on top,” explains Dubiel, who targets speckled trout, redfish and striped bass. “It’s outside the plastic, but the point is protected. It’s pretty smooth going through the grass. And the keel weight has a tendency to keep the lure a little cleaner, whether you’re fishing grass, wood or oyster shells.”

Capt. Ed Zyak of D.O.A. Lures in Stuart, Florida, says the company works with Eagle Claw to design hooks customized for its baits. D.O.A.’s PT-7 topwater lure comes with a 7/0 extra-wide-gap spring-screw TroKar hook with a needle point instead of the standard triangular point.

“The triangular point cut through the PT-7 easier than the needle point, which doesn’t rip out of the bait as easily and still has an extremely sharp point, plus we needed a bigger gap for the PT-7 for better hookups,” says Zyak, who also fishes the hook with a 5.5-inch jerk bait, 4-inch shad, and 5-inch swimbait for snook, redfish, and trout. “What makes it good is it’s a very strong, very stout hook. And because the wide gap drops down so far, it acts like a keel, which makes the baits swim true.”

Zyak skin-hooks the lures, going through the top of the bait with the hook point, then barely sticking the point back into the lure. He does the same with the 3/0 Needlepoint Screw Hook that Eagle Claw makes for D.O.A.’s 3-inch C.A.L. Shad and 4-inch C.A.L. jerkbait. He adds that a benefit of the spring screw, besides easy rigging, is it allows for multiple bites. “Many times fish come up and whack the bait, pull it down, and now the bait’s compromised, so you’re not going to get that follow-up bite because the bait’s in a ball. With the screw, they whack it and whack it and whack it.”

Rig Saltwater Soft Plastics Like Bass Fishermen

Capt. Mike Mann of New Smyrna Beach, Florida, a member of the Rapala and Z-Man pro staffs, pairs VMC’s freshwater bass hooks with Z-Man’s swimbaits for redfish and trout in central Florida’s Mosquito Lagoon during summer. Because of Z-Man’s stretchy, nearly indestructible 10X Tough ElaZtech soft plastic, Mann employs an old Texas-rig trick from his largemouth bass fishing days.

“I use an eighth-ounce worm weight and put a toothpick in the top hole, breaking it off to pin the weight to the top of the lure. Screw-in worm weights don’t work well with Z-Man baits because they don’t stay in the ElaZtech,” says Mann, who fishes with an exposed jig hook during winter. Summertime is when he gets away from jig heads. That’s where a small bullet weight keeps the hook weedless.

“I use a wide-gap 4/0 hook with Z-Man JerkbaitZ and PaddlerZ and a 3/0 with PogeyZ and small (3-inch) paddletails.” Mann says. He Texas-rigs the lures. “I’ll bring the hook point up through the slit in the lure’s back and then just catch the tip of the hook point back in the lure. When a fish hits, it’ll pop right out and you’ll get a better hookup, but it still allows the lure to come through the grass without getting snagged.”

Zyak Texas-rigs lures with Eagle Claw’s specially made Long Neck Hook when grass is thick on the surface. He inserts the hook eye into the bait to reduce the chances of snagging grass, and secures a small bullet weight atop the nose of the lure with a rubber bobber stopper. Zyak also uses the hook to weedlessly rig a ¼-ounce 3-inch D.O.A. Shrimp backward, cutting off the tail flipper, leaving the weight, and adding a glass rattle into the bait’s head.

When he’s fishing around structure, Aaron Wavra, an associate manager at Pure Fishing, Texas rigs Gulp! Shrimp and Mantis Shrimp on a Berkley Fusion19 EWG (extra wide gap) Hook with an unsecured bullet weight because “you get a little more movement when you jig the rod and impart action to the bait. The weight slides up the line and allows the shrimp to do its own thing. It has an erratic action.”

For a truly different weedless option, Wavra suggests drop-shotting a baitfish imitation. Using a technique popular with bass anglers when the bite is tough, a Fusion19 Drop Shot or EWG Hook is attached to the line with a Palomar knot a foot or so above a weight. “Instead of nose-hooking the bait, come in between the gill plates” Wavra says, so the hook point is just inside the nose. “I’ve used it in Islamorada [Florida], in sand holes where you’d typically throw a shrimp on a jig head. You can really control the presentation and keep the bait vertical. The nice thing is you always have a tight line and can feel every bite. It’s ­excellent for finicky fish.”

If he’s fishing in grass, Wavra rigs Gulp! Shrimp, as well as the Gulp! Pogy, Nemesis and Ripple Mullet, on Fusion19 keel-weighted or unweighted swimbait hooks, which have a spiral bait keeper attached to the eye. “The thing I like about it is it keeps the shrimp vertically oriented.”

Likewise, Mann pairs the Z-Man EZ ShrimpZ with a VMC Heavy Duty Weighted Swimbait hook because it allows the shrimp to hover vertically in the water and float down when he lifts the rod tip. He coats the shrimp lures with Pro-Cure Super Gel fish ­attractant, his favorite scents being shrimp and bloody tuna.

Rig Jig Heads With Soft Plastics

Cowart is a Z-Man pro staffer who partners with his son, Capt. Michael Cowart, in three different redfish ­tournament series. They used to Texas-rig their Z-Man baits on Mustad Grip Pin weighted hooks. Thanks to field testing and recommendations Cowart and his son made in conjunction with Eye Strike Fishing, Z-Man now offers the Weedless Eye jig head. It features a streamlined head that has a bait keeper plus a wire weed guard that goes through the hook eye, which is bent at a 45-degree angle, to the hook point. The weed guard prevents the exposed hook from snagging. “It’s 99.9 percent weedless,” Cowart says. “You can throw it with any Z-Man bait. Not just any jig head will work with a Z-Man. You need a keeper for the ElaZtech.”

Read Next: Secrets of Fishing Soft Plastics

Cowart also uses the Z-Man Texas Eye jig head. The freely swinging Weedless Eye head is attached by a ring to the eye of a Mustad hook. He Texas-rigs the jig head, going through the bait with the hook, then skin-hooking the hook point back into the lure.

“Any paddletail bait swims like freaking crazy on it,” says Cowart. “When you’re fishing a Z-Man and the jig head is resting on the bottom, the bait will float straight up. It makes one fantastic dead-sticking bait. Redfish can become very finicky. They don’t want a lot of flash or movement. A retrieve with the Texas Eye could last two minutes.”

Use a Lightweight Hook or Jig Head

Cowart says that for 90 percent of their tournament fishing, they tie on a jig head with a 3/0 hook. They use as light a jig head as possible because too heavy a head dampens the action of the bait.

His Weedless Eye weights are usually 3⁄16- and ⅛-ounce. He uses a ­3⁄16-ounce Texas Eye half the time, going to ¼-ounce when fishing in 5 feet or more of water.

Dubiel’s VMC weighted hooks range from 1⁄16- to ¼-ounce. The heavier hook is used for deeper water when Dubiel has to get a 360GT down to structure. Whichever hook he uses, it’s perfectly rigged so only fish get the point.

The post Hooks for Weedless Rigging Soft Plastics appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Oyster bars attract more cruisers than a sports pub on a Saturday night. In fact, these natural “watering holes” rank as top pickup spots for many inshore gamefish species from Maryland to Texas. Hang out at the right time, and you’re all but guaranteed to catch fish. Baitfish and crustaceans are also bar regulars, prompting a variety of predators to take advantage of ambush spots in and around oyster reefs. Choose the right tide and properly present the right bait, and you’ll increase your odds.

Pick the Right Tide to Fish

“Tide is critical,” says Capt. Jordan Todd, of Saltwater Obsessions in Port St. Joe, Florida, who fishes Apalachicola Bay in the state’s Panhandle. “We have oyster bars in different depths of water, so there are oyster bars that’ll be out of water on low tide and covered up on high tide. Then there are others in 5 to 6 feet of water that are covered up all the time.

“For redfish, you want a low tide that’s starting to rise. The first half of the incoming tide, those redfish will start swimming into it and start feeding around those exposed bars. I normally like to start fishing just as they start to get covered up.”

Todd anchors downcurrent of a bar and throws topwater plugs — ­chartreuse- or bone-colored Rapala Skitter Walks are his favorites — on top of or beyond the bar, working them back with a walk-­the-dog retrieve. He also buzzes weedless, non-weighted soft-plastic paddle-tail lures across the top of a bar.

As the water deepens, Todd switches to a shrimp jig or a D.O.A. or Gulp! shrimp under a popping cork. “A good angler can use a quarter-ounce jig head or D.O.A. shrimp, and bounce it across the bar,” he says. “Hard twitchbaits, like a MirrOdine or Rapala Shad Rap, work very well.”

“We fish a lot of oyster bars ­whenever we’re fishing for snook, redfish and trout,” says Capt. Brian Barrera of South Padre Island, Texas, who likes to anchor his boat by barely exposed oyster bars on a rising tide in the Lower Laguna Madre bay.

“When the tide’s just high enough, big schools of mullet will feel safe right on top of the bars, and the snook, trout and redfish won’t have enough water on the bar to come in after them. They’ll be hanging right around it, waiting to get in there.”

Barrera’s go-to bait in that situation is a D.O.A. PT-7 topwater lure. “Since it’s weedless and floating, you can get right on top of the bar. As you retrieve it, the PT-7 looks like a mullet venturing off the bar, and the fish come up and explode on it,” he says. “I’ll also do that with a D.O.A. C.A.L. 5.5 jerkbait and rig it weedless with a 6/0 screw-lock hook. You can drop that over those oyster beds, and it looks like an injured mullet.”

Oyster Bars Attract Bait and Gamefish

Capt. Brian Sanders, who fishes the Ten Thousand Islands in Everglades National Park out of Chokoloskee Island, Florida, uses live finger mullet, pilchards, threadfin herring and shrimp. He catches the baitfish with a cast net and buys the shrimp.

“The oyster bars in Chokoloskee serve a big purpose,” Sanders says. “They harbor a lot of crabs, shrimp and small baitfish. Raccoons eat the crabs and shrimp at low tide, and as the tide rises, fish come in to eat them too. I’ve seen redfish bellies that are packed full of small little crabs. It almost seems like the redfish use the oyster bars to eat the crabs.”

Sanders positions his bay boat in front of oyster bars over dark bottoms with turtle grass. He says redfish, snook, sharks and jacks cruise over that bottom, and his customers also catch reds and seatrout on top of the bars where they’re mixed in with mullet. Oyster bars also attract black drum, sheepshead, ladyfish and mangrove snapper, which will all eat a live baitfish and a live shrimp.

“The colder months, when there’s not a lot of live bait around, fish a shrimp under a float on a higher tide on top of a bar, and on the edges of the bar when the tide is lower,” Sanders says.

Todd says Apalachicola Bay features a shrimp hatch in spring, so from that time into early summer, he fishes live shrimp under a popping cork. In June, July and August, he switches to small menhaden or cut menhaden for trout; he goes back to shrimp in fall during the white shrimp hatch.

Fish Deeper Oyster Bars During Outgoing Tides

Bar-hopping begins as oyster reefs overtop with rising water or become exposed as the tide drops. Knowing the depths of different bars allows anglers to fish all of them when the conditions are optimal for each. Barrera prefers to fish a falling tide for five or six hours, so when the water drops too low at one bar, he moves 20 or 30 yards to a deeper bar, and makes repeated casts as he waits for the water depth to get right.

“If we hook one or two and it’s pretty fishy, we’ll stay,” Barrera says. “What’ll happen lots of times is we catch one or two and spook the fish, and they’ll ­scatter. Then we’ll move to the next patch.”

Todd also moves to deeper oyster bars on a falling tide and targets seatrout “because those trout will stack up on those deeper bars as the bait comes to them.”

The best bars are not solid masses of oysters but rather clumps of oysters that offer multiple ambush spots for game fish. Bars with sandy spots also can be productive.

“Oyster bars with character, ones that are broken and have little pockets, tend to hold more fish,” Todd says. “I also look for bars that have breaks in them or are horseshoe-shaped or have little holes in the middle of them. The fish can stay in the holes in the bars.”

Says Sanders, “I don’t concentrate on big, giant oyster bars, but scattered oysters near a beach or an island.”

Fishing Tackle for Oyster Bars

Anglers need tough tackle to pull hooked fish away from oyster bars. Barrera uses 20- or 25-pound leaders on his 10-pound braided line and 7-foot, 6-inch G. Loomis inshore rods when fishing in Texas bays. He upgrades to 30- and even 40-pound fluorocarbon leaders when fishing oyster bars.

“A 32-inch snook will pull you into the oysters,” he says. “I tell my clients to try to keep the fish out of the bar as much as possible. As soon as I see it in the bar, or they feel it, I tell them to open the bail, and I’ll use my trolling motor to go up to the bar and get the line out of there.”

Read Next: How to Fish Marshes and Creeks

If you do hang up on a bar, “point your fishing rod at it, grab the spool and pull back slowly, and you’ll usually roll over the oysters, then the hook comes free,” says Sanders, who outfits his southwest Florida anglers with 7-foot rods with 3500 or 4000 spinning reels spooled with 20-pound braid and 40-pound fluorocarbon leaders.

Todd uses a 7-foot medium-heavy rod in the Panhandle, with a 4000-class spinning reel spooled with 20-pound braid and usually a 25-pound ­fluorocarbon leader. When he’s targeting bull reds around deeper bars in 6 to 8 feet of water, he ties on 30- or 40-pound fluorocarbon leaders.

The post How to Fish Oyster Bars appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Hot Spot: Freeport, Texas

Species: Amberjack, snapper, redfish, tarpon

Captain: Mike Jennings, Cowboy Charters

Captain Mike Jennings at Cowboy Charters in Freeport, Texas reports, “Fishing has been good nearshore and offshore.”

On his 12-hour offshore trips, Jennings targets blackfin tuna behind shrimp boats and he fishes for amberjack and vermillion snapper over live bottom. Inshore, he fishes half-day outings for large redfish and tarpon. 

On his offshore trips, Jennings fishes over live bottom in 170 to 300 feet of water.

“We have exposed limestone that hosts a variety of cool-water soft corals,” he says. 

To catch vermilion snapper, Jennings ties a simple two-hook bottom rig with 80-pound leader and six- to eight-ounce sinker. He baits two 4/0 to 8/0 hooks with bite-size chunks of squid or Boston mackerel.

“Vermillion have a small mouth so I use a small piece of bait,” he says. Globbing a big chunk of bait only makes it easier for the vermillion to steal the bait.

Targeting amberjack requires heavy tackle. Jennings brags, “Our amberjack average 40 to 60 pounds.” To battle giant reef donkeys, Jennings uses an 80- to 100-pound class rod and 30-wide reel. He runs a 12/0 to 14/0 circle hook on a 12-foot, 80-pound fluorocarbon leader with a 16 to 18-ounce sinker. Bait is a live blue runner or grunt.

When the bad weather precludes an offshore trip, Jennings takes advantage of the fantastic nearshore fishing. “Tarpon fishing has been better than usual,” he says. On a recent trip, he caught three out of five tarpon. 

Jennings searches for tarpon that are surfacing along the beach. When he spots fish, he casts a live menhaden or sand trout on a heavy spinning rod. He rigs the live bait on a 12/0 hook and 12-feet of 80 pound leader.

After a slight delay, big redfish have arrived. Jennings says the fish showed up as the water temperature dropped. “They’re in their fall pattern,” he says. To find drum, Jennings first finds bait. He looks for schools of menhaden to indicate predators nearby.

Once he’s in the money, he anchors the boat and deploys a slow, steady chum slick. Then, he fishes sardines, menhaden and threadfin herring on a fish finder rig with a 10/0 hook. 

Jennings expects the redfish action to last through the winter. Tarpon will leave the area soon. Offshore, he’s hoping the red snapper season opens in October. “We should know about the season in the next few weeks,” he says. 

The post Texas Turns On!! appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.