"Seeing Reds"
By Terry Lacoss
Seeing redfish has been a bit of a challenge recently for long time fishing buddies, Kent Poteat and Russ Heller. Granted fishing goes in cycles where red fishing is excellent for a period of time due to a successful spawn, abundant supply of forage foods, moon phases, water quality and most importantly, less fishing pressure.
"Russ and I have been having a tough time locating redfish during the past few weeks," Kent Poteat said. "We have been concentrating on the out going and low tide periods where redfish school in shallow sloughs, making them a easy target for our flats boat and fly fishing gear. I would like to blame it on a variety of fishing conditions, but at this point I believe our Northeast Florida redfish are being over fished. There are a lot of fishermen now that are targeting redfish because they are hard fighting and excellent eating too!"
"I would like to see the current Florida Wildlife Commission put the redfish limit back to one redfish per day while keeping the slot limit at 18-27 inches".
Kent Poteat and Russ Heller are not the only fishermen that are complaining about the current FWC limits for redfish. A large school of redfish can be easily depleted when overfished, especially if there are four fishermen in the boat taking home their two redfish limit, thats eight redfish!
"I love to sneak up on a big school of Mosquito Lagoon redfish,"Gary Jennings said. "However during the past several months the big schools of redfish have been simply non existant. In fact this has been going on for a couple of years now. I am good with the one redfish per day limit, one big redfish is plenty of fish for me to eat. However in most cases redfish are so fun to catch, I will let them go so that other fishermen can enjoy catching redfish as well."
Gary Jennings is the Director for "Keep Florida Fishing" and on the board for the "American Sportfishing Association". If you have imput write to Mr. Gary Jennings, 6514 Sawyer Shores Lane, Windermere, Fl. 34786.
When I first encountered Amelia Island redfish, I would simply anchor my bass boat alongside a long oysterbar, back then the power pole was yet to be invented, and wait for a large school of redfish to forage their way to my waiting redfish lure. Today we have to fish deep under docks where redfish I believe are hiding from our fishermen!
With this said, myself and many backwater fishermen would rather see a large school of redfish pushing their way on a shallow flat to within casting distance of a fly, lure, or bait. Simply said, seeing 20-50 redfish churning the shallows, or making wakes has to be a "Top Ten" in the world of shallow water fishing.
With the growing popularity of red fishing, our economy has benifited as well. Fishermen are traveling to popular redfish destinations, staying in hotels, hiring fishing guides, eating at restaurants, by redfish gear and baits at local tackle shops, buying boat and vehicle gas and in many cases purchasing a shallow water fishing boat that is rigged especially for catching redfish.
Several fishing tournaments have also cusomized their format around the ever popular redfish. The IFA Redfish Tour, (Inshore Fishing Association) holds redfish tournaments thourought the Southeast and along the Gulf including the State of Texas. In recent years the very popular fishing manufacture "Power Pole" has also been holding redfish tournaments as well. Also include the Greater Jacksonville Kingfish Tournament that holds a one day Redfish Tournament prior to the kingfish competition. Also include the "Amelia Island Spot Tournament".
Without saying, purchasing a fishing license helps funding our Florida Wildlfe Commission, boat ramps & parks, stock fish and most importantly, patrol our waters for ilegal fishing activity.
Managing the stocks of Florida redfish has been a challenge from commercial netting, which ended during 1989 when Florida approved redfish for game fish status, literally taking them off from the meat shelves.
Karl Wickstrom "Florida Sportsman Magazine" spoke before the Florida Cabinet on behalf of bringing game fish status for redfish. Crowds of people filled the building and out to the streets listening to a speaker system.
A long-term cabinet member aid said the redfish turnout was the largest crowd to ever appear before the top officials. Five years later the net ban was approved saving many thousands of redfish that were netted by accident.
With the growing popularity of red fishing, fishermen and our governing bodies need to stay on top of what is really happening out on the redfish flats. For current redfish regulations please go to www.myfwc.com.