Late Winter Fishing on Florida's Big Bend
Late winter fishing can wear on an angler and the one or two good days each week can get squashed into another dimension over night by a front. I say hang in there, spring is coming and then we can have 3 days of good fishing followed by 4 days of gale force winds! Over the years it's become easy to make light of the subject and tough days of weather have helped me to become a better angler/guide.
Some of my clients this time of year come from other parts of our country and their water is frozen over, so when I wine about my Florida boy blood ( I like it cold when I'm hunting ) I have to stop and put things in perspective - that we can be outside and not die. We don't winterize our vessels and drilling a hole into the Homosassa River to wet a line ain't never gonna happen.
For some good action to make your forearm sore, there are some 6 to 10 pound jack crevalle in the river. Keep a lookout for the surface to churn into a frenzy and use any color soft plastic to catch them. Make sure that your retrieve is lively and fast. It may seem when watching them eating everything in their path that it would be easy hooking them, but you have to make you bait look as though it is running for its life. They surface and disappear so watch the direction their heading to stay in front of them. One way of knowing is to watch the birds, especially the blue herons because they will fly to the next point of ambush. The birds are looking to pick up a quick meal from the panicked bait the jacks are chasing. Incoming tide will be dark in the morning or late afternoon this weekend.
Captain William Toney
