Almost vacation Time For Fishing

So it’s getting close to the holidays, and I am going off for a vacation here in a couple of weeks, which means that I will be doing some serious fishing. Sorry for the lack of posts, but I really don’t have any new stories at the moment. Although last week my buddy and I did make a trip to the Fort Desoto piers. For fishing in Florida, it was freakin cold as balls too, and the fish didn’t seem like they were that hungry that night.

We tried live shrimp and we also tried fishing with some sand fleas, and after about 4 hours of freezing are asses off we caught a couple of small flounder, a couple keeper snapper, and a buzz from all of the beer that we drank. The fish actually didn’t even start biting until around 11PM. So here is a word of advice if you are doing some night fishing at the Fort Desoto piers, stay away from the Gulf Pier, last three times I have fished there at night I didn’t get crap. Not even a bite, I always have better luck at the small pier, which is the Bay Pier. Although the bigger pier is great for catching bait if you have a big enough cast net, you can get hundreds of shiners in one cast if you can find them, which really isn’t that hard at all.

So this vacation I will be bringing my camera and taking lots of photos, and I will be fishing with my cousin and my uncle so its guaranteed that we are going to fill up the cooler with some snook and mackerel. But where do I want to go? I might just go down to Fort Meyers and fish there, it is a lot closer than the Keys, but I know if I make the trip down to the Florida Keys I will have a much better time and more than likely catch a crap load of more fish than I would fishing Fort Meyers. Who knows I haven’t even decided yet, I might even do some fly fishing. I really suck at it though, I need to get a fly fishing for beginners book or something. So until I get back from my vacation I might not have any more interesting posts or pictures for you guys, but once I get back I will post them. Hope everyone has a great month fishing and a great Christmas.

Saltwater Fishing Fort Desoto - Part 2

So me and my buddy Joe were heading out to Fort Desoto park to do some saltwater fishing, but this time we were not going to fish the piers like we normally do. We decided that we were going to do some fishing from the bridges on the way to the piers, and depending on the tide sometimes this will pay off pretty good. Now I am sure you can put some bait on a hook and fish from the bridge, but I have never really tried that, and haven’t ever really heard of anyone catching anything worth keeping. But I am sure that it has been done, me on the other hand, decided that I was going to be using a cast net, the cast net that I had was a 7 footer, and I was aiming to catch some mullet.

We pulled up to the bridge when it was high tide, and it was about 8 am in the morning, threw a couple of casts, and really didn’t get much initially, just a couple of small shiners and some pin fish, maybe a small mullet o two here and there, nothing worth keeping though. Then I had seen a huge school of mullet swimming under the bridge, this was my chance to get some. So I threw the net with a perfect spread, and when I pulled the cast net up, there were about 10-15 mullet in there, here’s a little picture of what I had got on just one cast.




I figured out that the key to catching mullet off of this bridge is patience and luck, and you also have to know where to throw, many people avoid this place because there are lots of rocks at the bottom, and I myself have messed up a lot of cast nets trying to get some fish. So if you are not sure if there are fish there do not toss the net in the water, wait patiently until you are sure that there is a school of fish there. And do not bring a huge expensive cast net out there unless you can accept that it is probably going to get messed up in the rocks, I have completely destroyed one of my cast nets doing so. If you are driving to Fort Desoto Park, towards the beach, go to the last bridge, and fish on the right side of the bridge with a cast net, there are fewer rocks on the right side and you have a better chance of not getting hung up in the rocks. That’s all for today folks, happy saltwater fishing !

saltwater fishing, fort desoto park, cast net fishing, catching mullet