I wish I were bringing you more joyful news, but…Florida has found itself in the throes of a true winter gut punch. A prolonged polar vortex has pushed cold air deep into the peninsula, dropping water temperatures across rivers, lagoons, canals, and backwaters. For Florida’s tropical and subtropical fish species, especially snook, this kind of cold can be devastating.

If you’ve been keeping up with my recent winter fishing reports, you’ve probably noticed a common theme: I have been riding a roller coaster of weather changes. Between blustery NNW winds, rising and falling barometric pressure, and water temps bouncing all over the place, this winter has been an exercise in patience.

Before bass tournaments, sonar screens, and Instagram reels, there was the American Shad…one of the original East Coast superstars. Every winter and spring, these hard-fighting fish flooded rivers from New England, down to Florida. Feeding Indigenous communities and early colonists alike. Salted and barreled, Shad helped families survive harsh winters. Legend even credits them with saving George Washington’s starving army at Valley Forge; the fish that literally helped create a nation.

So I am going to start by asking a question? Have you ever faced wind gusts so intense that it blew you over, capsizing your kayak? No? Well, neither have I, but this weekend I came really close.

Florida bass fishing isn’t gone — but it is under pressure. And right now, too many anglers are watching the places they love slowly lose what made them special in the first place…

In the build up to, or the early days of a cold snap, the wind often blows pretty strongly from the north. That makes the residential canals of the Banana River a great place to spend an afternoon looking for fish. Not only does it offer wind protection, but it also offers a deeper water refuge with plenty of man made structure.

We had an awesome Christmas. My sons, and I started a new Christmas Eve tradition this year, a father/son fishing outing. We really had an awesome time, and we were able to go out and catch a lot of fish together. It’s been a little while since I have written a kid-centric fishing report, and with extra family time for the holidays, maybe some of you may find this report entertaining, and useful.

Merry Christmas! Today I am going to dive into the world of tackle talk, and make the case for why baitcasters belong in the inshore anglers arsenal.

I feel like lately I have neglected the areas north of Melbourne when it comes to inshore fishing reports. This past weekend, my oldest son had a soccer game against St. Mary, which is located in Rockledge. After a truly awesome Christmas season matchup between the Kindergarten squads from St. Joseph & St. Mary (Can we call it the “nativity bowl”?) I decided to hit an area of Merritt Island I had not been to in a while, Sykes Creek.

Today I am diving into the world of tackle reviews, with a Volume I installment of the “Great Inshore Paddle Tail Wars.” I have been able to fish more recently, and I thought with the extra time on the water, this would be a great time to experiment with 2 different paddle tails, and do a head to head comparison.

One of the Bass I caught from the cove on the NW corner of Poinsett near the SJR Channel.

Hopefully this will be the first of many kayak Bass trips we get to take together. And yes, I did give her a hard time for the using the grippers on a small Bass.

There are a ton of Lily Pads on Lake Osceola, the Frog bite was really good when we were there this past weekend.

A trip south to Lake Ida is not just about Peacock's, it's a great place to catch Largemouth too!

I went back to Fox Lake Saturday, here are 3 of the species I caught Saturday afternoon.

The Bass fishing on the freshwater side took the cake, but this was my most exciting inshore catch on the Eau Gallie River this weekend. I have not caught very many of these guys in […]

While this is certainly not anything to brag about in the size category, I thought this fish was really cool looking in how dark it was. I know that Largemouth Bass are known as Black […]

My boys and I had a blast last night at Wickham Park. We caught 4 StumpKnockers in roughly an hour of fishing. Each one we landed brought tons of joy and excitement.

I caught this on my last inshore trip on the 4th. It was in the shallows off the mangroves close to the radio tower in Downtown Melbourne.

I caught this on my last inshore trip back on the 4th. The warmer weather led to a much better bite.