South Florida fishing report....

Darin Crofton · March 04, 2019, 02:09:20 AM

Glad you're having fun, PJ! I love fishing the estuaries, you never know what's going to bite!

Gfish · March 04, 2019, 03:59:53 AM

Ah, youth. Control burning in the daytime, having enough energy for fishing in the evenings.
Them Florida estuaries look from the variety/size you're catchin, to be a great nursery area. Nice pictures.

Fishy247 · March 05, 2019, 06:59:31 PM

That is so cool! Looks like you're having a blast PJ. Getting any work done?

pjstevko · March 06, 2019, 01:39:19 AM

Quote from: Fishy247 on March 05, 2019, 06:59:31 PM
That is so cool! Looks like you're having a blast PJ. Getting any work done?

Funny you should ask that question.....

There hasn't been any fishing for the last few days since I'm up in Sebring helping out Lake Wales National Wildlife Refuge do some prescribed burning. Because the local terrain is difficult to get around on we have very specialized equipment we use to pull off a burn like this. The best all around piece of equipment for this environment is a swamp buggy which is basically a monster truck with a 200 gallon water tank and a pump on it! The next best piece of equipment is a marsh master which is a cross between a pontoon boat and a tracked fire engine.

The swamp buggies are all custom made by a family right here in Sebring and can travel through water over 3-4 ft deep as well as crawl over brush 5-6 ft tall!
The marsh master can float on water as well as crawl over brush on dry land. It contains a water pump build directly into the frame of the machine and can pump water from the lake is floating on!

I'll get back to fishing once we're done burning up here but for now this will become a prescribed burn report!

sharkman · March 06, 2019, 11:42:15 AM

Really cool pictures. I need one of those swamp buggies for Tampa traffic.

Gfish · March 06, 2019, 02:54:43 PM

COOL!
Wow, fire equipment just keeps getting better and more specialized. In the olden days we had flatbed 4x4's rated for a ton or more with slip-on tank/pump units.

Fishy247 · March 06, 2019, 04:45:05 PM

Yeah, those are some pretty cool toys to play with if you can't go fishing....

pjstevko · March 07, 2019, 12:14:13 AM

Here's a few pics from the burn today. We finished up the unit from yesterday and burned another 150 acre unit today. The weather today really made for great fire effects.....

Dominick · March 07, 2019, 12:20:29 AM

Cool pics. Next time put on a clean jacket.

Dominick

alantani · March 07, 2019, 06:44:30 PM

Well, that and stay safe!

pjstevko · March 09, 2019, 09:15:29 PM

The night we got back in town from the burn the local bridge fishing was on fire! I landed 4 soon over 25" and jumped 2 nice sized tarpon!

conchydong · March 09, 2019, 11:44:42 PM

Nice. It looks like the Terroreyz still work pretty good. I wonder if they would work for Calicos on the West coast. Enjoy.

Scott

pjstevko · March 10, 2019, 02:21:26 AM

Quote from: conchydong on March 09, 2019, 11:44:42 PM
Nice. It looks like the Terroreyz still work pretty good. I wonder if they would work for Calicos on the West coast. Enjoy.

Scott

The 3/8th TerrorEyz is my all time favorite snook and tarpon lure for fishing a strong outgoing tide at the local SW Florida bridges!

I'm sure calico would crush a TerrorEyz if you could get it deep enough

pjstevko · March 11, 2019, 01:22:42 PM

I got to spend a quick weekend in the keys with my aunt and uncle and although I didn't get to do a lot of fishing I did manage to catch this small barracuda!

My time in South Florida is coming to an end soon but I'm hoping to get a few more evenings off fishing in before I head back west. I'm still hoping to land a tarpon bigger than those micro ones I caught a few weeks ago

pjstevko · March 12, 2019, 11:48:38 AM

I finally landed a good sized tarpon last night! I stopped by a local bridge at around 10pm after having dinner with some friends and it was alive with action. It was a strong outgoing tide and I could hear and see tarpon rolling and attacking bait so I knew I'd have a good shot of hooking up. After several missed strikes I finally got one to stick and landed my first good sized tarpon of the trip.... Here's the fish of the trip so far..... Estimated 25-30#!!!