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.
I got one day in.
Father-in-law let me borrow his 23’ Carolina so I just had to run all over the bay. Sometimes motors get in the way of fishing but my 6year old was more than happy to bounce around. Saw the entire bay and nobody seemed to be doing any fish catching, and my fool self had been promising Spanish since Christmas. I did luck up on a couple nice trout while tossing spec rigs for Spanish. The wind was at least 15 out of the west but the park provided some cover. After 3 hours I sucked it up and put on a couple Clark Spoons and started trolling. After about 45 minutes and I was redeemed with 2 (just) legal Spanish. Trolled some more and found another. I was quite pleased to find any and my fisher girl was ecstatic. Which was the point.
Also, my week off has mostly turned in to pressure washing the entire house. Hangin in there.
I headed down to St. Joe with 11 of the men from my church on Friday.
Friday - the wind blew like mad. We ran off shore to the car body reefs, and saw some good fish on the depthfinder, but we could not scare up a bite.
Went back inshore and ate at the St. Joe Marina. Then caught a few small trout and some blues along the eastern edge of the bay between Presnells and the public ramp.
Left the bay and ran down the intercoastal to the "T" stopping a couple places along the way. Saw two guides down there, but could not catch anything. The guides left and we headed back to the ramp.
Saturday -
Went back to the eastern edge of the bay, but no luck in the morning. Worked the east side of the bay down to Presnells without much luck, then headed out toward Blacks Island.
In the deep channels around Blacks Island, the Spanish were running hard. We caught 9 Spanish. When the Spanish slowed down, we slowed our retreive on our jigs. Working them along the bottom, we caught 14 keeper flounder.
I fried up the flounder on Saturday afternoon and fed the entire church crew. I fixed it like the Boss Oyster restaurant - Scale, gut, remove heads, then cross hatch with the filet knife on both sides, batter and fry.
They turned out great and you get a lot more to eat than trying to filet them.
With the body of the flounder whole, head, guts, and scales removed, cut several parallel lines down to the bones with your filet knife. Then turn the flounder 90 degrees and repeat the process. You end up with about 3/4" square chucks of fish still attached to the bone. Do both sides of the flounder this way.
When you batter the fish, work the batter into the cut lines on the flounder, then drop it in hot oil until it floats. You will be amazed at how much more fish you get off each flounder vs. fileting them. Just pull the bite sized pieces loose with your fork, then flip the fish over and do the same thing on the other side.
Both the Boss Oyster Restaurant and Jimmy Mosconis' Bay City Lodge in Apalachicola serve their fried flounder this way. That is where I got the idea.
- Steve Stinson
I'm ready to go back for another load. This post is making me crave them all over again.
gotcha now! I bet that is good. I'll definitely agree on getting more meat out of it doing it that way, Very rarely will i ever filet a flounder unless it's 3 lbs. or better. Though I usually just bake mine whole, more healthy for ya........
Hangin in there.
job well done...nothing like seeing a little girl smile 
