Florida Fishing by Basil Dubrosky

Posted on February 7, 2018 by VHFC

On February 6, Ed Valitutto, who was spending a few months in Cape Coral, joined me in Sarasota for some fishing. We departed the dock at 9AM and headed out to the North Bay. A NE breeze took care of the early morning fog and there was no boat traffic on the way out. We arrived at our spot near the Ringling flats and began casting our jigs. Earlier this year I was catching seatrout on 4 and 6 inch paddle tail soft plastics on 1/8 – 1/4 ounce jigs fished fast but with the recent cold fronts coming through the fish stopped biting. I had been experimenting with Gulp and found that a 3 inch pearl white shrimp fished on the bottom coaxed the cold trout into biting.

Our first spot was a bust but on the second stop I started to bail the trout on my pearl white shrimp. Ed quickly changed over and we began catching fish on almost every cast. We were joined by a couple other boats. Ed and I frustrated these guys by out fishing them with our Gulp. We must have caught over 50 fish and ended up with 6, nice size keepers. At one point I had a big fish take me all around the boat before my tippet gave way, but what would a day be without the “big one” getting away. Other highlights included a cormorant who caught and swallowed two released trout and a dolphin who wanted to do the same and forced us to move a bit. We motored back to the dock, cleaned fish and made plans for another trip.

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Fishing Facts

Of the fifty United States, thirty-eight have a striped-bass record. New Jersey has the largest striped-bass record—a 78-pound 8·ounce whopper that was caught in 1982. The state with the smallest striped-bass record is Iowa. That landlocked striper weighed only 9 pounds 4 ounces and was caught in 1983.

There’s something fishy about beer these days. Fish Tail Ale is popular as ever, and New Jersey’s Flying Fish Brewery is one of the state’s largest specialty breweries. There’s also Washington’s Wild Salmon Organic Pale Ale, Florida’s Land Shark beer, Delaware’s Dogfish Head beer, and two versions of Stingray beer—a lighter version from the Cayman Islands and a dark beer from Canada.

The triangle fly is probably the most unusual of saltwater flies. It’s one of the few, if not only, flies tied to a treble hook. It’s also barely a fly at all, because hardly any material is used. It is complete after tying the two straw pearl twinkle flashes and the tiny tuft of natural squirrel, leaving an entire hook fully exposed. Incredibly this barebacked treble fly is a knockout when it comes to sea trout.