Tom...tell us about your fishing in florida. DIY or guided? In-shore or offshore?
Jeff,
My bff from when we were kids moved to FL last year. Being a MN boy, he promptly bought himself a pretty bad ass fishing boat. A 26' Sea Hunt, center council, Yamaha 250, digital steering and throttle.
So we were not guided, it was DIY. We were just wingin it. He has fished a bit and learned some tricks. We were in-shore I guess you'd call it. He lives about 20 min from the bay. Keeps the boat in a marina and calls in when we are headed down. The marina puts the boat in a slip and it's ready when we get there. It was a sweet set up really! Mostly we fished in and around the Inter-coastal. We tried a bit at "The Gap" for Tarpon, which was a off shore as we got. A few miles out probably.
There was plenty to keep us occupied in-shore. The very first fish I caught was a F'n catfish! LMAO. Fly 1500 miles to fish in the ocean and I caught a channel cat.
Other stuff we caught was a Ladyfish, Red Snapper, Speckle Trout, Mackerel, Jackfish, Mako Shark, and Black Tip Shark. I'm sure there are a few more there I'm missing.
For bait we would stop in the morning and buy some shrimp and crabs. Sometimes we'd have to make a few stops for shrimp. They were either sold out or the suppliers weren't catching enough the day before. We would also toss a net into schools of baitfish if we got close enough. The Pin Fish was what we caught in the nets mostly. They look like a Bluegill and were about the size of a small one you'd catch off the dock at the cabin.
I caught 3 sharks and my buddy caught 2. All of them were on crabs or the Pinfish we caught in nets. Silly as it sounds, we were fishing in about 10' of water with "corks" as the southern boys call them. Slip-bobber to us Yankees, over a circle hook. The first shark was a Mako. We couldn't even bring him in the boat. From what we understood, they're Federally protected and you can't keep them or even have them in the boat. So, we grabbed his tail...but he went nuts and tried to bite whatever had a hold of his tail. When he did that, he sawed off the line. Which was fine with us. LOL!
The next one my buddy caught and that was a Mako as well. The rest of the sharks were Blacktips. None were very big but man!!! are they strong. The one we weighed was 9 pounds and probably 30" long. They took 5-10 minutes to get in on our gear though. They really make some runs and like to jump. It's a really, really fun fight. Much harder than the biggest muskie I've caught.
I'll tell you what, it would not be hard for me to adjust to that life at all! I've been to FL about 10 times but never to the Gulf Coast. It's quite a bit different from the rest of the state I've seen. It's a much more laid back, slow pace without the crazy traffic of central, southern and the eastern coast of FL. My wife also loves FL, so it's on our retirement list for sure.
