posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
Frustrating, isn’t it, when you’re counting on a day on the water and the weather doesn’t cooperate? How many times have you planned a weekend boating or fishing trip at midweek, when the weather forecast for the weekend looked great, only to have that trip ruined by high winds or rain or both when the weekend rolls around?
Don’t blame the weather service. The meteorologists who make those forecasts are doing the best they can to solve an immensely complex riddle that is the weather. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
Tenacity—the willingness and fortitude to stay with a task until it is completed—is both a blessing and a curse of the fisherman. I suppose that’s why we keep going back again and again, whether it’s trolling all day offshore in hopes of connecting up with a dolphin, tuna or sailfish, or why we spend hour after countless hour casting lures for trout, snook and redfish. When do you just call it quits and go home?
As I get older I find that, while I still have the willingness to stay on the water until I catch something, I don’t have as much fortitude as I once did. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
Have fuel prices affected your fishing or boating plans?
It stands to reason that higher fuel prices combined with an economic slump would take a toll on fishing and boating and there’s growing evidence of that, almost all anecdotal. I’ve seen reports from areas of concentrated fishing—the lower Keys, for instance—that there are fewer boats on the water this year than last. The head boats aren’t going out every day like they used to. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
So both I and my friend Bill have our boats up for sale. He’s serious, I’m sorta not. If Bill sells his boat, he’ll buy another, bigger one. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
A west wind makes for calm seas on Florida’s east coast. In the middle of what passes for winter in the state that means pompano patrol!
Jack and I hit the beach before dawn, mostly because Jack has a theory that fish don’t bite during the day. Never mind the thousands of fish I’ve caught in the middle of the day. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
Anybody who does much sailing knows how expensive the sport is. Never has so much been spent to go anywhere so slowly. But my friend George has solved the expense problem. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
While making my annual pilgrimage to the Miami Boat Show last week, I managed to grab a few minutes with Thom Dammrich, the president of the National Marine Manufacturers Association. The great thing about folks like Thom is that they can put some hard numbers to perceptions we have about things like the health of the boating industry.
While the Miami show is always glittering and glamorous, the impressions I had before strolling through the Miami Convention Center were mostly that boating was taking a whack from the souring economy. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
Targeting snook for the dinner table is an exercise in frustration. Sure, they’re one of the tastiest fish that swims in Florida waters, with a firm white flesh that flakes beautifully. The problem is catching one that you can keep. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
You may have seen them art shows or at upscale fishing tackle shops: prints of real fish matted and framed as art. They’re very attractive, not at all like the splashy art of sailfish ripping up schools of bait fish that are suitable only for a basement or den. This is subtle, sophisticated art. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
I came home from a little bottom-fishing expedition a few days ago with a few yellowtail and mangrove snapper, some of the tastiest fish that swim the reefs. They’re especially great on the grill. They aren’t as strongly flavored as traditional grilling fish like salmon, tuna or mackerel, but their flesh is firm enough that they don’t tend to fall apart. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
When will the wind stop?
I don’t mean for good, I mean just long enough for me to get in some relaxing fishing. I haven’t gone back and researched the climatological data, but March seems regularly to be windy time on Florida’s east coast. How windy? Well, right now the anemometer on my sailboat’s mast is showing fairly steady winds of close to 20 knots with a few gusts to the higher 20s, and I haven’t been watching it that closely, so we may have had a few blasts of 30 knots or more. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
It’s always fun to take a little break from working and just troll the Florida Sportsman Forum website. You never know what you’re going to find. You can check fishing reports for wherever you happen to be in Florida and pick up some useful tips about fishing techniques and tackle. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
Forget now about the battle of clients vs. charter captains that I wrote about in my last post. Let’s turn our attention to more serious matters. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
Whenever I get tired of fishing for trout and redfish in the Indian River—which isn’t often—I break the monotony and go grouper groping. Most anglers think that to catch a good size grouper you’ve got to go offshore, finding a reef or wreck that hasn’t been overfished by every other angler within 100 miles, and try to lure a fish out of its hidey-hole. All true. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
You don’t realize after more than 20 years of sailing how jaded you can become. I don’t even read Sail or Cruising World any longer. The articles have become repetitious and boring. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
It won’t be long now before the sultry summer weather sets in. I know that because all the fishing and boating summer catalogs that are flooding my mailbox contain one advertisement after another proclaiming the virtues of so-called technical fabrics that “wick perspiration away to keep you cool. ”
Here’s the skinny: tech fabrics don’t make the grade. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
There’s no better way to learn about a new boat than to take a long cruise on her.
There’s no worse way to learn about a new boat than to take a long cruise on her.
I realize that sounds contradictory, but there’s an elemental truth about that contradiction. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
I love the Florida Keys. The chain of islands extending off the southern end of the peninsula is one of the unique cruising grounds in the world and I’ve spent many happy days in those waters aboard Galaxie, our 46-foot ketch.
But Galaxie’s near-six-foot draft has always prevented me from seeing the backside of the Keys, the stretch of water from Marathon to Biscayne Bay on the north and west side of the chain. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
We finished our delivery trip of a 34-foot Gemini 105 catamaran from Bradenton, on Florida's west coast, to Vero Beach on the east coast. Despite sailing for nearly three decades, it was my first real experience on a cat big enough to go cruising on (my Hobie 16, a virtual rocket ship of a boat, doesn’t count because, while you might die on it at high speed, you certainly can’t live on it).
I can now understand what people like about cats and what accounts for their increasing popularity. ...
posted by VISITFLORIDA.com on Jul 5
I keep adding things to my flats boat. A few months ago it was a Power Pole. Last week it was a new propeller. ...