Florida 2012 The Complete Story :)

[DRIFTER_016]

Several years ago I was lucky enough to meet a couple of really great people on my annual trip to Alaska. One of these people was a dude named Brian Epperson. He has been hounding me to come visit him at his place in Tampa so this year I booked time to go and visit him and his family to soak up some Florida sun and maybe do a little fishing. Did I mention Brian is a licensed captain and fishing guide?

 

Now getting to Florida from Yellowknife is a PIA to say the least. Day one: hop on a plane in Yellowknife and fly to Edmonton where I change planes and fly to Toronto where I had a 9 hour lay over. Got a bit of sleep in the airport before boarding my flight to Tampa. It was much easier when I lived in Ontario.

 

I arrived in Tampa just after lunch and picked up my rental car and headed off to grab some lunch before meeting up with Brian. He told me about a place called Crabby Bill's so I headed there to start the relaxation. I ordered up a rum and coke and some seafood while waiting for Brian to finish his charter and come by. The view from the patio at Bill's didn't suck at all.

 

 

 

That night we would head out on the first of two tarpon trips. The tactic was to tie off under the bridge and sight fish to fish cruising just inside the shadow line. Usually at this time of year Brian spots about 100 fish a night and hooks up 5-10 times. But this year for some reason the fish weren't in yet and we only spotted about a dozen fish over the two nights hooking up only once.

 

 

 

The following day Brian had us going for redfish but first we had to go catchus some bait.I only ended up with 4 redfish bites that I managed to farm off.

 

 

 

As the sun got higher the redfish disappeared as they usually do during mid day so we headed off to get a couple of bat wing rays to use as shark bait. Then we set up in Brian's favorite sharkin' area but the sharks weren't cooperating which probably had something to do with a pretty lousy tide.

 

 

 

Saturday was a day off fishing and I had plans to drive to Orlando and pick up an order I had shipped to the BPS store there. Man they don't mess around down there with their BPS stores, it had to be at least 3 times the size of the Toronto store!!! I picked up my goodies and a bunch more before heading back to Tampa to meet with Brian.

 

 

Got me some more fly tying materials too.

 

 

Saturday nights plan was to hit up the good ole hockey game.

I had purchased a pair of tickets to the Lightning/Jets game and the seats were by far the best I have ever been in. I could never afford these seats in Toronto when I lived in southern Ontario, but in Tampa the seats were much more affordable. My tics were 7th row right on the Winnipeg blue line.

One really cool thing at thier arena is up in the ceiling they have two big tesla coils that they fire off at the beginning of the periods and after Lightning goals. They shoot giant lightning bolts 10 foot long or better. Really cool idea. Their sound system kicks donkey too!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday we headed out for some black drum fishing. These things hang around the bridge pilings and average 40 to 50 pounds. Brian would manouver the boat up to the lea side of the pilings and I would pitch live bait to fish sitting there waiting for some hapless fish to drift by. While we put baits in front of about 40 of these things I only had one hook up which I fought for several minutes before having it get into the pilings and break me off.

 

 

The next trip was my best of the week. Brian had arranged with a buddy of his Greg to do an off shore trip on his 25' center console T-top equipped with twin Optimax 150's. The plan was to head out and fill the bait well before heading to some waypoints out in the gulf where we would anchor up and fish for snapper, grouper, amber jacks...........etc.

 

 

 

 

Our first stop was a drop off about 20 miles or so off shore where we caught a bunch of gag grouper. Which was great except the season was closed on them. I got a couple of nice ones but the only photo was terrible so I'm not gonna post it. I did get a bunch of good shots of my new friends though.

 

 

 

 

 

Our next and best stop was way out there nearly 50 miles from port. It was a ship wreck in about 100 FOW. As we pulled up on the wreck there were fish everywhere!!! We got anchored up, got the chum pot in the water and baits set out. We had schools of snapper, amber jack, jack cravelle below the boat as well as the occasional giant school of roving barracudas on the surface. At one point a school of about a dozen sharks swam past the boat as well. The cudas and jack cravelle ignored all baits but we managed one amber jack and a bunch of snapper, some red grouper and a single yellowtail for the fish box.

 

 

From left to right Greg's buddy Chris, Brian, Greg

 

 

Brian hooked up on a big ray which was fun.

 

 

 

While Brian wasdoing battle with the ray Chris was hooked up with a good fish.

 

 

Turned out to be about 300#'s of nurse shark!!

 

 

 

My turn for a decent fish 200+#'s of Goliath Grouper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris got a good one too!!!

 

 

 

 

I got out with my other buddy for a few hours of flats fishing for reds, trout and snook but only managed one small red on top water. Here's a shot of my buddy Sam on our way out to the fishing grounds.

 

 

While the fish didn't completely cooperate during the week a fun time was had. I even got out and watched Brian's daughters play softball several times. Seems baseball/softball is thier version of hockey down there. All the kids play and the diamonds are way better than anything I ever played on in Ontario in my younger days.

It's a good thing I decided to get back on Good Friday because it has taken until today (Monday) to recover from my vacation!!!

[NAW]

Great Read and AWSOME pics Drifter! :thumbsup_anim:

 

I've been waiting for this report

[Grimace]

That is unbelievably awesome.

[asdve23rveavwa]

FANTASTIC Thanks for that one, something I've always wanted to experience!

[TennesseeGuy]

You sure put together a sweet fishing report for a guy from somewhere else.

 

Thanks.

[WeedLine]

Talk about multi-species fishing! Great report. I was in florida for 2 weeks this past march and had a blast too. I think all of the tarpon you were looking for were still south around miami and the keys. I saw tons of them. That grouper is huge.

[backbay]

Great report and wicked photos, Thanks!

[Dondorfish]

Wow!!! - Just Wow!!!

Thanks for posting this - very entertaining :thumbsup_anim:

 

 

 

Tracker (Don)

[spincast]

Great report - beauty grouper!

Thats the way to spend the winter months.

Edited April 10, 2012 by spincast

[Joey]

What a fantastic report. Thanks for sharing your trip

[Roy]

Congrats to you Dave. Looks like you had a great time in the warmth.

[tomO]

Looks like fun glad you had a great time!

[cuzza]

Great report Dave - glad you had a successful trip! That Grouper is enormous, not sure if they have teeth or not but I still wouldn't be lipping it like that

[johnnyb]

Fantastic report, Dave! Looks like a great time...thanks for sharing a bit of it with us

 

 

[Beans]

Damn the luck !...Why wasn't I born rich...I love fishing in Florida...

 

Great report and pics...

[solopaddler]

Nice recap Dave, glad you had a good trip!

[Spiel]

Outstanding report Dave, thanks for taking the time.

 

Though I'm going to question your comment about "soaking up some Florida sun," I'm thinking you stayed out of it 99.9% of the time judging by the pictures.

 

 

 

[TDunn]

Looks like a wicked trip too me! Makes me want to get back out on the saltwater! (have only been once)Love the ray pics.

I agree about the ball fields too. I played in Cocoa Beach, Florida back in the day and they were the most amazing fields I have ever played on in my life....

 

Again, very cool report!

 

 

 

TDunn

Edited April 10, 2012 by TDunn

[Ron]

Gee, too bad about the weather, having to endure temps in the 80's must have been nerve wrecking! I see you got your mind set back though by going to a good ol hockey game. I didn't think you would have gotten home sick in such a short period of time and have to visit a place where there was some ice!

 

Sure you say the numbers were short for the amount of fish caught. I bet the total of all those fish would still be more of a fight than catching 20 trout though.

 

Glad to see you had a great time and got to catch up with some good friends.

 

Cheers, Ron...

[Moosebunk]

Nicely put together in report Dave. That's a long haul, alotta fishing but IMO TOTALLY worth the price of admission for a grouper like that and all that time in the sun. Good shhhhtuff!

 

There's gotta be more than one Crabby Bills..?

[DRIFTER_016]

There's gotta be more than one Crabby Bills..?

 

 

Yeah, there's a bunch of them.

 

Crabby Bill's Locations

[Jet]

Wicked stuff Dave! Would love to tackle some of those fish on the flyrod especially a Tarpon!

 

Thanks for sharing!

[Dutchy]

Awesome stuff.

 

Was just down there myself. I must concur, the lightning bolts in the ceiling were awesome. Edmonton was in town when I was there...........I have to say I thought the organ was pretty cool.

 

 

Somehow you found bigger grouper than me...........................

 

but how many grey grunts did you get :jerry: