Hunting and Fishing Report

Hunting and Fishing Report

By Scott Lindsey

Contributing Writer

Let me remind everyone that red snapper season is over, especially the two guys I talked with Sunday who went Saturday and caught a box full. Y'all should have just forgotten about the limit, also.

Read this very carefully, the season is over with for 2008 and you can continue catching and keeping them in 2009.

If you like flounder, and I've never met someone who doesn't, now is the time to fish for them. Cussing Cousin is hauling them out at phenomenal rates. He sent me a picture of 20 his son and his grandson caught along with some older guy they met at the dock. Cousin is known for many things, but unfortunately photography isn't one of them.

Looking west to Navarre Beach, the trout still can be found on the flats. The warm weather one day and cooler weather the next hasn't sent them heading for the creeks and rivers. On the gulf side, whiting and pompano should be showing up in large numbers, especially the whiting. Unlike most other fish whiting  in Florida don't have a size limit or a limit on the number you can catch, so don't try and take as many home as you can fit into the box.

In East Pass at Destin, the bull red drum are biting. Live choffers work very well for them. Cut-up mullet also will do the trick, but if you want to put the ball on the 5-yard line, live bait always is a winner.

Roy at the Salty Bass in Fort Walton Beach is reporting phenomenal success fishing on top for speckled trout. Roy said he and a friend caught 22 speckled trout and many redfish last week. The most interesting thing Roy talked about was the large numbers of pompano being caught off the Shalimar Bridge. One customer last week caught five pompano and numerous Spanish mackerel. Roy said that in a day it is not unusual to see 50 pompano caught from this bridge, and it is many miles from the gulf.                                        

In Choctawhatchee Bay, everyone is looking for redfish. I went to Black Creek last week and took along the black cat known as the dog doctor. I don't believe the dog flies would bite if you had the dog doctor along. I don't know what it is about Doc, but he has a way of turning off the fish.

It was a little too warm to be speckled trout fishing, and we did get there a little late, but I should have been able to catch something. Doc managed to land a sizable redfish and two speckled trout.

I heard a good redfish report from the canal between Choctawhatchee Bay and West Bay. The gentleman was a little evasive as to the exact spot he caught those reds, but he did let it slip he caught them around the rocks. There are probably not more than 20 rock piles between West Bay and Choctawhatchee Bay, so if you're not pressed for time you should try to find his spot. He fished with grubs if that's any help.

In St. Andrew Bay, I'm sure the redfish are still a little shell-shocked from having over 200 tournament fishermen pounding the bay for two days, but I would bet if a fellow caught some choffers and headed to the pass he could still catch a few.

Also in the bay, flounder seem to be biting around the entrance to the pass and in deep holes around it. Cousin has caught more than 50 in the past few days. I'm not sure there will be many left if he keeps up this pace.

Bluewater Outriggers in Port St. Joe reported that flounder can be caught in the canal connecting the Intracoastal Canal with St. Joe Bay. This little stretch of water always has been hot for flounder fishing during the fall. Probably the reason for this is it concentrates all the flounder leaving the Intracoastal and heading for the gulf. In blistering cold weather, it is a magnet for speckled trout.

St. Joe Bay is not producing like it should this time of the year. It seems the bait mullet haven't begun to move like they should. Even so, around the mouth of the bay pompano and trout can be sight fished. On the west side of the bay around the mouth, large schools of redfish should be in shallow enough water to sight fish.

It won't be long before we can start doing some real hunting and put down the sticks and bows. A bow salesman tried to sell me a bow early on in the season, and I told him I had never had a deer come close enough to me to even think about shooting him with a stick. Besides, with my shoulders I can't even pull one back.

I have been hearing more reports of turkey this year than I have heard before. One hunter saw more than 40 last week including long beards, jakes and some about half-grown. The area he is seeing these turkey has never been what you could call a turkey haven. I don't know if they are migrating down the river or if they have found themselves a new home.

Tuesday night I walked outside and noticed the moon had a ring around it. Old-time sportsmen know when this happens these are ice crystals in the atmosphere and if you count the number of stars inside this circle it will tell you the number of days before it rains.