Florida Fishing: Anna Maria Island

Florida fishing is awesome – especially saltwater fishing. We had a nice family vacation this summer on Anna Maria Island, and the entire family got in on the angling action. Everyone caught fish, from the little kids to the more experienced adults. This wasn’t our first time fishing Anna Maria Island, however, so I'll share a few fishing tips with you.

Anna Maria Island is in the Gulf of Mexico, just south of Tampa. It’s connected to the mainland by two bridges, and it’s connected to Long Boat Key via another bridge. Anna Maria has three fishing piers, canals, bay frontage, inlets, and beautiful beaches. Fish can be caught at all these places.

Anna Maria City Pier and Rod and Reel Pier

Both these piers are located near the northern tip of the island, and both have bait shops and restaurants. There’s no shade on either pier, and if you’re fishing with little kids, you might want to avoid these fishing venues. Neither has any guard rails. Otherwise, they’re great places to fish for sheepshead, snapper, grouper, jacks, flounder, snook, blackdrum, Spanish mackerel, trout, and very large sharks.

Bridge Street Pier

This pier provides for some comfortable saltwater fishing. Sections of it are shaded, and there are benches for sitting. The pier has sturdy railings, so it’s a good place to take kids. At the land end, there’s a small bait shop and a restaurant. Around the pilings and rocks, you can often see scores of trout and sheepshead, along with a large snook or two. Getting these fish to bite is another story, however.

Long Boat Key Bridge – Longboat Pass

You can fish from the bank or the beach on the Anna Maria side of the bridge, but be careful of the current if you’re wade fishing. Some big fish are frequently landed here, including sharks, tarpon, cobia, snook, permit, and redfish.

Bimini Bay

Bimini Bay is located on the east side of the island, in the Holmes Beach area. When the tide goes out, you can spot sandbars in the bay. If you have a small boat or kayak, fish around the sandbars for speckled trout, silver trout, flounder, reds, snook, and sharks.

Sarasota Bay

Sarasota Bay has several places where fish are likely to be lurking: oyster beds, mangroves, sandbars, artificial reefs, and grass flats. You’ll have the chance to catch snook, reds, trout, snapper, pompano, flounder, tripletail, ladyfish, Spanish mackerel, sharks, jacks, blues, cobia, and small grouper.

Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay is wide open when it comes to saltwater fishing! It has just about every type of fishing environment there is, including beaches, flats, deep grass beds, channels, river mouths, and bottom structure like rocks and rubble. Many anglers have great success around the pilings of the Skyway Bridge and on the Sunshine Skyway piers. In Tampa Bay, you’ll have a world of chances for snook, tarpon, mangrove snapper, red snapper, hog snapper, permit, amberjack, gag grouper, red grouper, scamp, huge goliath grouper, sea bass, king macks, Spanish mackerel, cobia, false albacore, pompano, sheepshead, blackdrum, and a variety of sharks – some of them pretty monstrous in size.

Canals

Most of the canals on the island are lined with oyster beds, which attract fish. In the canals, we’ve caught trout, mangrove snapper, croaker, whiting, sheepshead, and some very large redfish. If you want to load up on live bait, pinfish are everywhere in the canals!

Beaches

Along the beaches, you can expect to catch just about anything, depending on the season. This might include tarpon, cobia, ladyfish, flounder, sheepshead, trout, snook, whiting, jacks, blues, pompano, and more.

Saltwater Fishing with Mole Crabs

Some people who enjoy saltwater fishing, especially surf fishing and pier fishing, never realize that some great free bait is right there on the beach. I’m talking about mole crabs, also called “sand fleas,” “sand bugs,” and “sand crabs.” You’ve probably seen these critters. They’re kinda oval shaped, and the larger ones are about an inch long. Check out the following fishing tips for free bait.

How to catch sand fleas

Sand fleas burrow in the sand, usually at the tide line. You can dig them up with a shovel, and this is a great job for kids. Another way to catch mole crabs is to use a piece of hardware cloth or wire mesh with ¼-inch openings. As a wave washes in, stick the mesh into the sand at an angle. The sand and water will flow out of the screen, and the sand fleas will be trapped. Don’t worry – sand fleas don’t pinch.

If you can’t catch your own sand bugs, many coastal bait shops sell them frozen. From my experience, the frozen sand fleas are just about as good as the live ones.

How to keep sand fleas for bait

Keep your sand fleas in a bucket with damp sand. Also, try to keep them out of the sun, in a cool spot.

What can you catch with sand fleas?

Several saltwater species eat sand crabs. They’re like candy for pompano and black drum. You can also catch sheepshead, reds, large whiting, and the occasional flounder on sand fleas.

Cobia Fishing

Cobia is a popular fish here in the South, as it is in other places around the world. Along the Atlantic, the fish is called cobia, but in the Gulf of Mexico, it’s usually referred to as ling. Cobia are very aggressive feeders and will strike most anything when they’re in the feeding mode. This includes mullet and other small fish, shrimp, crabs, and a variety of artificial baits. Cobia will even hit small hardhead catfish – and you thought those hardheads weren’t good for anything! See? You just never know what kind of fishing tips you'll get here for Florida fishing.

In clear water, like in the Gulf, cobia can often be seen, so sight casting is possible. Sometimes cobia can be viewed swimming with stingrays, and oftentimes cobia will hang out in pairs. Cobia also like staying close to buoys and any type of floating debris, so remember this when cobia fishing.

From my experience, the best way to catch cobia or ling is to freeline a live pinfish or mullet. If you see a cobia, toss the live bait in front of it. If cobia are hanging deep, toss your bait out and let it sink to the bottom, then retrieve it with a series of jerks. Some old salts say they can “call cobia up” by making noise. They do this by slapping the water, imitating the sound of a wounded, struggling fish.

Cobia is excellent on the table and performs well in a variety of fish recipes. I especially like baked cobia recipes. The flesh is white, mild tasting, and firm. Below is an easy baked cobia recipe:

Easy Baked Cobia recipe

4 serving-size cobia fillets, about ¾-inch thick
Heavy aluminum foil 4 squares
4 teaspoons melted butter
4 tablespoons white wine
4 small sprigs fresh dill
Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions: Rinse cobia fillets and pat dry. Place each fillet in center of foil squares.

Drizzle melted butter over fish. Add white wine and dill.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Close foil packs tightly and place them on a cookie sheet or baking pan.

Bake cobia packets at 450 degrees for about 13 minutes. Wait 5 minutes before opening pouches.

Red Fish Fishing - Best Fishing Lures

I really enjoy red fish fishing, and I'll gladly learn and share fishing tips! One of my most memorable angling battles ever took place on a breezy autumn night at the end of a very long fishing pier while doing some Florida fishing. I was fishing with a finger mullet about six inches in length, near some rocks. I was using pretty light tackle, and I thought I’d never land whatever was on the other end of my line. When I finally got it close to the pier, a pal directed his flashlight beam on the water, and I saw the tell-tale goldish-red reflection of the red’s scales. With the help of a gaff, we finally got the big brute on the pier. It weighed in at almost 36 pounds.

Advantages of Redfish fishing with lures

I’ll be honest with you – I usually prefer fishing for redfish with live bait – especially mullet. Unfortunately, live mullet aren’t always available. And when they are, you need some bulky paraphernalia to keep them alive. This isn’t always convenient or even feasible.

With red fish lures, however, you can keep a big selection in your tackle box, so they’re always ready to go. They stay fresh, too, and you don’t have a problem with crabs mauling your bait. Another advantage of red fish lures is that you control the action. You can speed it up or slow it down, and you can maneuver it around rocks, pilings, and oyster beds. That’s pretty hard to do with live bait.

YUM redfish lures

Many serious anglers are familiar with YUM plastic baits. The secret to YUM lures is that they’re impregnated with something called “Live Prey Technology,” or LPT, for short. The LPT is an enzyme that attracts predators, signaling them to feed. When redfish sense the enzyme, along with being attracted to the erratic swimming action that means injured prey, the reds can hardly resist attacking the YUM baits.

YUM baits are designed for several different types of fish, but for redfish fishing, try the Sweet Shrimp, the YUM Houdini Crab, the YUM Samurai Curltail, or the YUM G-Shad.

D.O.A. fishing lures

We’ve had good luck fishing for redfish with D.O.A. plastic lures, too. I like the six-inch jumbo shrimp, the four-inch standard shrimp, and the curl tail grubs with the red jig heads. The softshell crab will work for redfish fishing, too.

The D.O.A. red fish lures mentioned above come in a wide range of colors. We’ve found that the best fishing lures for reds are the pink, near clear, red and white, and gold. I suggest keeping several colors in your tackle box and trying them all.

Bayou Buck red fish lures

The ZZ Spot Spinners are neat plastic lures with fish-attracting curly tails, glass and brass beads, and saltwater-proof brass spinning blades. These red fish lures won’t twist because they swim straight, so you won’t even need a swivel. They also feature wide gap mouths specially designed for red fish fishing.
For fishing for redfish around grass or oyster beds, like in marshes, try the Twistless Sister, the In-Line Reef Glider, or the Oyster Proof. For colors, I like the strawberry, the lemon meringue, and the red for red fish fishing.

Once you land a redfish...

If you catch a redfish that's a keeper, you're in for a tasty treat! Blacken it, fry it, grill it, broil it, or stuff it. I have some great fish recipes! Of course, you'll want some awesome sides and yummy hushpuppies to go with your redfish, so check out my beer- buttermilk hushpuppy recipe in Southern food. I'll bet they're just about the best you've ever eaten!

Florida Fishing: Flats Fishing near Port Richey

I love saltwater fishing, especially Florida fishing. We just returned from some flats fishing in the gulf near Port Richey, and I'll share a couple of fishing tips. If you're in the area, rent a boat and travel the short distance to the mouth of the Cotee River. You'll find a small island, sand bars, and stilt houses. All these areas hold fish.

A couple of saltwater fishing tips: We found the best methods for tarpon fishing and cobia fishing was to drift a live finger mullet ot pinfish. Most folks will tell you to use a pinfish, but we had better luck with the live mullet. The pinfish were a lot easier to obtain, however, as they're everywhere!

The mangroves are another place to target, especially for mangrove snapper, reds, and trout. These fish aren't too picky about baits, either. For hot-weather trout, fish early and late in the day, before the weather heats up.

Flats fishing in this area will reward you with some great scenery, too. The water is crystal clear over the grass beds. don't let the clear water fool you! You'll think you're in two feet of water even though you might be in eight feet. Saltwater fishing in Florida represents some of the best flats fishing anywhere!

To read more about Florida flats fishing, go here:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Fishing-Trips-Near-Port-Richey-Florida

Fishing Trips Near Port Richey, Florida, with Fishing Photos

Fishing Trips Near Port Richey, Florida, with Fishing Photos

Fishing tips for catching big reds

Most of you seasoned anglers know that to catch a big fish of a certain species, you often have to employ different strategies and tactics than you would for a small fish of the same species. This is certainly true of reds.

Reds, red drum, red bass, spot-tail bass, channel bass - whatever you want to call them - are great fun to catch, but the big ones can be wily. They didn't get that old and that big by being dumb.

This is a great article with saltwater fishing tips for beginners to understand the low-down on big reds. And after you catch your red and fillet it, use my recipe for blackened redfish, found below. Here's the link to the article: http://hubpages.com/hub/how-to-catch-a-big-redfish

Fishing tips: Best flounder baits

I love flounder fishing! In fact, I think it's my favorite angling of all. There's really not a lot of work required in catching one of these flatfish, and they're superb on the table. With a few saltwater fishing tips, you'll be well on your way to dining on some great grub!

What's the best bait for flounder? That largely depends on who you ask. For example, in North Carolina and in the Chesapeake Bay, many flounder fishermen use strips of cut bait to entice their prey. In Georgia and Florida, however, I've never seen this bait used for flounder.

Among my circle of flounder fishermen, we prefer live shrimp, finger mullet, and mud minnows as our choices for natural baits. I've caught the largest flounder - the real doormats - on finger mullet. Of course, these aren't always available. Live shrimp are effective, but they die so quickly that they're sometimes aggravating. Also, smaller fish species will often eat the shrimp. If you have a nice stout finger mullet on, you'll decrease your chances of catching undesired fish.

Mud minnows usually work well, also, but not as well as the mullet. One problem with buying mud minnows is that some of them are really too small to entice a decent sized flounder. Try to pick out larger mud minnows if you have a choice.

For artificials, I've had the best luck with ledhead jigs. I use a red ledhead paired with a pink or white soft grub. Some fishermen tip the hook with a small bit of shrimp, but I don't.

To read more about flounder fishing, go here: http://hubpages.com/hub/fishing-for-flounder