Bouncer Smith

Captain Bouncer Smith is one of the most beloved and decorated fishing captains in South Florida history. Over more than fifty years, he took over fifteen thousand anglers fishing, pioneered South Florida swordfishing, and guided his clients to more than seventy world records. An IGFA Legendary Captain and Billfish Foundation Lifetime Achievement honoree, he is also a leading conservationist. Now retired, Bouncer shares his hard-earned knowledge in his In The Spread video on catching cubera snapper, one of South Florida's hardest-pulling gamefish.

Instructor's videos

If South Florida sportfishing has a single most beloved figure, it is Bouncer Smith. Over a career that spanned more than fifty years, Captain Bouncer took over fifteen thousand people fishing off Miami, and along the way he became one of the most respected and decorated captains the sport has ever known. He is retired now, but the knowledge he shares is timeless, and In The Spread is proud to carry it.

The story started early. Bouncer moved to Miami from Michigan as a boy in 1956 and caught his first sailfish the very next year, at eight years old, on a bait he rigged himself. He worked the Sunny Isles pier at thirteen, a drift boat at fifteen, and earned his Coast Guard captain's license in 1968. From there he built a legend, running his 33-foot Bouncer's Dusky out of Miami Beach Marina for decades, a boat he simply called his office.

Few captains have ever covered as much water or as many species. Bouncer is a genuine pioneer of South Florida swordfishing and a guru of sailfish, but he is just as comfortable on tarpon, snapper, and anything else that swims off Miami. His anglers have set over seventy world records. The honors read like a hall of fame ballot: inducted into the IGFA Legendary Captains and Crew, awarded the Billfish Foundation's John Rybovich Lifetime Achievement Award, and recognized for public service, tagging, and conservation more times than most captains could dream of.

What people who know him will tell you first, though, is that Bouncer never stopped caring about the resource or the people. He fished through every era of the sport, from the days of keeping everything to the modern catch-and-release ethic, and he became one of the game's most outspoken conservationists, tagging roughly two thousand sailfish and teaching students why the fishery matters. He is also a storyteller without equal, humble to a fault, and generous with everything he knows. He mentored a generation of captains and treated every client like a friend.

That generosity is exactly why his In The Spread videos are so valuable. In them, Bouncer shares the hard-earned knowledge of a half-century off Miami, the kind of detail you only get from a captain who has seen it all and still gets butterflies on the strike. Learn from a true legend of South Florida fishing, and you learn from the best there has been.

That generosity is exactly why his In The Spread video is such a gift. In it, Bouncer breaks down catching cubera snapper, one of the hardest-pulling, most rewarding fish in South Florida, sharing the bait, tackle, structure, and timing it takes to land these bruisers around the wrecks and ledges where they hold. It is a half-century of hard-earned knowledge from a captain who has seen it all and still gets butterflies on the strike. Learn from a true legend of South Florida fishing, and you learn from the best there has been.