A unique website dedicated to fishing information from Florida's Northern Big Bend. This includes the area from the Econfina River west to the Apalachicola River
Use this area to post inshore fishing reports from the area. Please try to include relevant information such as:
Location, date, time, water conditions, weather conditions, baits, techniques, species caught, etc.
First post! Great site, I have been reading for a while to gain the local knowledge. Hopefully you'll see more of me, and my boat that doesn't fit in with all the center consoles (I/O cruiser) out catching on weekends. I will qualify this post with some background info, I am used to far northeast lake and river fishing where I am originally from, and have to use a book to look up some of the not common species, but man do I love living in the big bend now and especially love the Gulf fishing.
Loaded up with some friends out of Shields at 9:30AM (had to wait for the forklift to get to me.. big line to get out), silky smooth out to the bird rack and then east along the stake line for a bit till I tucked in and got into about 4 or 5 ft. Set the hook (no drifting for me, hard to get a 6000lb I/O boat unstuck from the shallows or worse the rocks). My fishing buddies and I all rigged up with popping corks at different depths and different gulps. Immediately started getting nibbled. Started off by pulling up 2 sharksuckers (remoras) without a clue what they were. Then got our first trout 19" then some shorts, then a ladyfish, a bunch of sharks (anybody know what kind they are and can you eat them?), and a keywest grunt (from best I can tell). All in all 20 landed fish, but only took home 2 keeper trout.. heck of a lot of fun out there. Used 4" natural shrimp color gulps, 3" new penny gulps, and 4" white shrimp gulps.. by the end of the day we were only using the white, they were definitely the bait of choice. Threw some topwater for a bit, but no action. Back to the Shields docks by 4pm.. Great day.
Welcome to the site. You will do better drifting. Get you a drift sock and it will slow your drift. If your going to anchor, chum will bring fish to you.
WELCOME ABOARD, GLAD YA CAUGHT A FEW FISH. YA GOTTA BE CAREFUL WITH THAT I/O , THE ROCKS DOWN AROUND STONEY BUYOU WILL EAT IT ALIVE. STONEY IS ABOUT 3 MI. E. OF THE LIGHTHOUSE, IF YA STAY OUT AROUND THE STAKE LINE YOU WILL BE O.K. MOST OF THE TIME. GOOD FISHING BETWEEN THE FIRST STAKE AND AND 3 RD. STAKE, AT LOW WATER YA WILL HAVE TO WATCH IT OUT THERE BUT OTHER TIMES YOU WILL BE SAFE.
PA THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA
SEMPER FI
Thanks everyone for the advice! I think one of my fishing buddies is going to get a flats boat so we can use my boat as a mothership with libations, a grill, and facilities for the ladies. Quick question, what kind of sharks are these, and can you keep / eat them?
They look like blacktip. You can eat them but you need to bleed them. Check FWC about regulations on shark before you send them to the icebox. We normally let them go because they are more trouble than they are worth.
Blacktip is the most common one we catch, plus an occassional Bonnethead too. Bleed them is right, or they will smell like ammonia (sharks don't urinate, they pass the ammonia out through their skin, so it is heavy in the blood). We usually wait until we have one in the 40-48" range for cleaning. Big enough to make some nice fillets and easy enough to handle at that size. Marinate the steaks in lemon juice and EVO overnight and baste them in the same (but fresh) when on the grill. Very hard to beat that. Below redfish but way better than trout to me. Amen to the drift sock. As long as you keep an eye on the depth, you will be okay. I have had days where the bite was on in 6', occassionally deeper.
I need to get a shark ID too, they sell them so you can make a quick ID so you don't keep the wrong one, but most of the time they are blacktips anyways. There are bullsharks in the area, they can be a pain when you get into a school of reds.
SharkID-Blacktip-Shark-features-600.jpg (53.26 KiB) Viewed 1987 times
Ducks, turkeys, flats fishing. Who has time for golf?
Thanks! I found this FWC shark ID flowchart. Will be keeping it with me in the boat. I'll wait until get a bigger one to try out that recipe, but man all I can think about now is a fish sandwich.
