Tarpon fishing will be the focus of many anglers during June. Tarpon schools will increase in size and numbers as we approach the full and new moons and they should be plentiful off Sarasota and Manatee county beaches. Large schools can be finicky, especially when moving fast, but they will eat if you get something right in front of them. Fish in the back of the school may be more likely to eat, so if you let the lead fish swim by before stripping your fly, you should avoid spooking the whole school and may be more likely to catch a fish from the back of the school. I like to fish shallow water for tarpon since it is easier to get a fly in front of them. Best visibility will be from mid morning to mid afternoon.

Fly anglers typically use 12-weight rods with floating, intermediate sink tip or full intermediate lines depending on water depth. I use Orvis Helios rods with Orvis Mirage Large Arbor reels. Tarpon leaders usually have one or 2 bimini twists, to absorb shock from jumps, terminating in 80-pound Orvis Mirage fluorocarbon. Top producing flies are Lefty’s Deceiver, Tarpon Toads and EP flies in a variety of colors, although black or other dark colors usually work well.

You’ll find snook in the surf, in passes and around docks and bridges close to passes this month. Snook season remains closed, so this is a catch and release only fishery. Use fly tackle heavy enough to catch and release them quickly with minimal handling. You can walk along the beach and sight fish them in the surf, much like sight fishing for bonefish on a gin clear flat.  Fly anglers should do well with small white flies, like my Grassett Snook Minnow, DT Specials or Lefty’s Deceiver. You might also find them around lighted docks at night, where the same flies will work. The highest concentration of snook this month will be around passes both on the inside and along the beaches.

You’ll find reds in skinny water early in the day. It will be best then when the light is low and the water is cooler. Look for them along the edges of bars when the tide is low or along mangrove shorelines or roaming over shallow grass when the tide is high. Fly anglers should score with Gurglers or wide profile baitfish patterns, such as Lefty’s Deceiver fished on floating fly lines with a 12’ or longer leader. You may also find big trout in the same areas and the same lures and techniques will work for them. Some of my favorite flats for reds and big trout are in north Sarasota Bay and the south shore of lower Tampa Bay.

You may also find blues, Spanish mackerel, pompano or flounder mixed with trout on deep grass flats. I like to drift and cast ahead of my drift with a clear intermediate sink tip fly line. Fly anglers should do well with lightly weighted flies, such as Clousers or my Grassett Flats Bunny. Drift until you locate fish and then either shorten your drift or anchor on them. Deep grass flats in Sarasota Bay that get good tidal movement such as the Middleground, Radio Tower and Marina Jack flats and Bishop or Stephens Point should all produce this month.

In addition to tarpon, look for false albacore (little tunny), Spanish mackerel, tripletail and cobia in the coastal gulf during June. You can find Spanish mackerel and false albacore by looking for diving birds or fish breaking on the surface. You might find cobia or tripletail around crab trap floats, buoys or channel markers. An 8-weight fly rod with a sink tip line and a Grassett Flats Minnow fly will work well for tripletail. You can fish a Grassett Snook Minnow or an Ultra Hair Clouser fly for Spanish mackerel and false albacore on the same fly tackle. Your 12-weight fly tackle and whatever tarpon fly you have tied on will also do double duty for cobia.

This is a great month for tarpon. It’s hard for me to fish for anything else unless conditions won’t allow tarpon fishing, but there are plenty of other options in Sarasota Bay and the coastal gulf if battling a 100-pound or more tarpon isn’t for you. Whatever you choose to do, please limit your kill, don’t kill your limit!

Tight Lines,
Capt. Rick Grassett
Snook Fin-Addict Guide Service, Inc.
Orvis Endorsed Outfitter Guide
Orvis Outfitter of the Year-2011
FFF Certified Fly Casting Instructor
(941) 923-7799
E-mail snookfin@aol.com
www.flyfishingflorida.net and www.snookfin-addict.com

Fishing in wet apparel can be rough. Accompany that boat spray or rain with a little (boat) speed and you’re cooling off at record pace. Simms has been keeping anglers warm and dry since day one, and all of their experience has gone into producing the Rogue Fleece Hoody ($99). The piece is packed with angler-friendly features: tailored a little on the long side, sports ribbed cuffs and waist, full center-front zip, and is Teflon coated for superior water repellence.

Available in charcoal or cammo

What I liked most about this hoody is that, unlike most fleece apparel, it isn’t bulky. The fleece is either pressed or shaved down, so it provides warmth, but can be rolled up and easily stored in a glove compartment.

The hand warmer pockets are large, comfortable, fleece lined and open ended – so car keys and fishing license will have to be stowed elsewhere. Tested in a heavy downpour and the outer fabric plus Teflon coating get top marks for doing what the manufacturer claims – inside stays bone dry. My one complaint is that Simms made the exterior (zippered) fly-box pocket a touch too small. It would have been nice to be able to get a medium-sized box in there – I suppose the pocket can be used for those keys and fishing license instead.

Casting and movement has been addressed with ergonomically tailored shoulder panels, sleeves and hood – which won’t blind you when you peek back at your backcast – nice!

Highly recommended.

Available in charcoal or cammo.

F3M Contributing Editor Dusty Sprague with a chunky Florida largemouth.

A recent Florida Fish and Wildlife Fish Busters’ bulletin discussed black (largemouth) bass stocking so I asked FWC’s Marketing and Special Projects Coordinator Bob Wattendorf to fill us in.

F3M–What is the annual cost of largemouth bass stocking programs?

FWC–The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has two freshwater hatcheries. The Florida Black Bass Conservation Center at Richloam Hatchery in Sumter County, and the Blackwater Fisheries Research and Development Center in Santa Rosa County. Combined they stock more than four million freshwater fish of various types annually into public waters. Less than a third of those are black bass. (I just heard this last season was unusually productive with more than 7 million fish actually produced.  The four million is a typical average for recent years. Other species primarily include Striped Bass, Sunshine Bass, Channel Catfish, Bluegill, Redear Sunfish, and Black Crappie.)

Total (salaries, maintenance and operating) budget for the two hatcheries, including all of the research and outreach they do as well as fish production is: $1.5 million; which represents 19% of the Division Budget. Again those budgets include all aspects of these two facilities, which goes far beyond just black bass stocking.

A more-detailed but simple formula to calculate cost per fish is based on total expenditures (all hatchery expenses, excluding FTE salaries) / total number of fish stocked. For FY 11/12, which is not yet completed, Richloam’s production stands at 4,123,231 fish stocked. This includes all fish produced and stocked since July 1, 2011. Assuming we spend down our entire Richloam hatchery operational budget allocation ($695,000), then the annual cost per fish, as of this date, is $0.17 per fish. This will be adjusted at the end of the year, because we have more fish to stock and probably won’t spend our entire allocation. This formula under-estimates the cost of phase II-fish, since they are cultured and fed on average 120 days, whereas phase-I fingerlings are cultured on average 32 days. To account for this, we can refine our costs per fish based on what it costs us to feed a particular species. As an example, our feed conversion ratio for phase-II largemouth bass is between 1.0 and 1.4, so based just on annual feed costs, it costs us approximately $0.03 to $0.05 per phase-II.

F3M–Why are largemouth bass stocked?

FWC–The primary reason is to provide additional recreational angling, which helps local economies and engage citizens and visitors in a healthy, nature-based recreational activity that may make them more committed stewards of our natural resources. In addition, we want to ensure there are sustainable populations of healthy, genetically appropriate black bass in our public waters. We use an adaptive management strategy– trying and evaluating a variety of strategies to ensure hatchery bass are healthy, fit, genetically diverse, and available at the right size and best time of year to maximize their survival in the wild. In most cases, stocking is a supplemental strategy that follows evaluation and when possible enhancement of the habitat and an understanding of the angling influences/preferences in a particular area. Consequently, the most common situations for using stocking are when new water bodies are created (e.g., reservoirs), following a dewatering event (e.g., sinkhole or drought conditions), or when there is a known year-class failure (i.e., natural spring spawning failed to produce a year class due to climatic or habitat issues).

F3M–Why is the bag limit so high?

FWC–The highest bag limit in Florida is five black bass, of which only one may be longer than 22 inches total length. Compared to many states that is a relatively strict limit for largemouth bass (e.g., AL-10; GA-10, SC-10, LA-10, MS-10, TX-5). In other water bodies, we have catch-and-release only reduced bag limits. We base the regulation on local fish populations, habitat and angler use. However there is concern that with 7,700 named lakes in Florida, we don’t want to over complicate the rules. In most cases a bag limit is a goal rather than representing typical harvest rates, and since most bass anglers typically practice catch-and-release (which is quite successful in fresh water) reducing the limit does not have a dramatic effect on bass populations.

F3M–Are black bass considered to be a food resource?

FWC–Generally, no and they are not allowed to be sold for food either by commercial anglers or aquaculturists. Black bass are naturally occurring species with important ecological, recreational and economic values. However, the bass populations in Florida, for the most part (remember there are 7,700 named lakes, 3 million acres of fresh water and approximately 12,000 miles of fishable rivers) are self sustaining and can accommodate some harvest for food or even trophies (also we discourage use of skin mounts and recommend catch-photo-release followed by some alternate form of memorialization (e.g., fiberglass replicas, photo replicas, photo). This latter is the emphasis behind the new TrophyCatch program that we will roll out in October 2012. In Florida, black bass annually provide more than 800,000 anglers with more than 14 million days of healthy outdoor recreation and generate approximately $1.25 billion in economic impact for the state (U.S. Census Bureau, for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2006).

F3M–Instead of continually spending money on stocking programs, why not regulate black bass like we do red fish and place a one-per-day limit on them?

FWC–We do regulate black bass, but various water bodies require different solutions. As indicated before, in some cases we require strict catch-and-release, other areas don’t receive that much angling pressure and a five-bass limit works fine. In fact, there are circumstances where additional harvest of bass, especially smaller ones, results in better growth rates. That is the rationale behind slot-limits, in which small fish may be harvested liberally, an intermediate range is protected to allow them to grow to quality sizes and then a limited number of bigger fish may be taken.

Each issue can be yours for $5.00 plus shipping (about $2.00 domestically).  For those of you who prefer “real” magazines you can lug around with you, these are the same as you see online, and can be read in any room of the house, on your boat, or wherever you do your best reading!

To order:

• Email which issues and how many of each to editor@flaflyfish.com with the subject “Paper Copy“. Include your mailing address!
• We will calculate the cost, and email the amount to you to pay in our PayPal account. If you prefer, you can also write a check of course.
• We will get it out to you in a week to 10 days upon payment.