Species: Spotted Sand Bass (Paralabrax maculatofasciatus) Location: San Diego Bay, California Date: August 4, 2018 Those bonefish weren’t the only catch of the day. The fish I caught most of that day (and on my whole trip to San Diego, for that matter) was the Spotted Sand Bass. These feisty fish also fight insanely hard for…
Species: Cortez Bonefish (Albula gilberti) Location: San Diego Bay, California Date: August 4, 2018 So I’m in the Air National Guard. I’m in the Medical Services Corps and work as a Medical Readiness Officer. You know the whole pandemic business we’re living through? Well a part of my job includes contingency planning for such crises. In…
Species: Gulf Kingfish (Menticirrhus littoralis) Location: Saint Petersburg, Florida Date: July 14, 2018 After spending most of the day fishing at two separate piers and finding plenty of fish but little in the way of species variety, I opted to move to the outer edges of Tampa Bay. I found myself not far from Saint…
Species: Black Sea Bass (Centropristis striata) Location: Tampa, Florida Date: July 13, 2018 Perhaps the biggest surprise of my first “real” Florida trip was this Black Sea Bass. Note: my actual first trip to Florida was a single night fishing in Pensacola the summer before, but this was an extended stay. The Black Sea Bass took a…
Species: Scrawled Cowfish (Acanthostracion quadricornis) Location: Tampa, Florida Date: July 13, 2018 After adding a species early on shrimp, I got another one to take a bit of squid, and it was something out of science fiction. Something with “quadricorn” in its Latin name is bound to be strange, but the Scrawled Cowfish is probably the…
Species: Spottail Pinfish (Diplodus holbrookii) Location: Tampa, Florida Date: July 13, 2018 I first “met” Ryan Crutchfield on Instagram before I’d even started species hunting. Our social circles overlapped, and I found myself following a guy on Instagram who posted some out of the ordinary fish pictures. Sure, the tarpon, snook, redfish, and bass pics I…
Species: White Grunt (Haemulon plumierii) Location: Tampa, Florida Date: July 13, 2018 I spent two solid days at ICAST with Fishbrain. From meeting Roland Martin and April Vokey to sitting next to Scott Martin during breakfast, I couldn’t have been happier. It as about as much fun as you can have while not fishing. You can…
Species: Atlantic Spadefish (Chaetodipterus faber) Location: Titusville, Florida Date: July 8, 2018 Every time a fish bites a baited hook, the reality is that they may be digging their own grave. I have no qualms with keeping fish, especially since seafood is my favorite. When given the opportunity to catch plentiful, good-eating fish, I’ve been known to…
Species: Common Snook (Centropomus undecimalis) Location: Titusville, Florida Date: July 9, 2018 It wasn’t a tarpon. It wasn’t a Ladyfish, either. It was something lighter in color with a big mouth. It was a snook. Snook are awesome. For years, they’ve been near the top of my target list, but they always seemed so unrealistic. Every video…
Species: Atlantic Tarpon (Megalops atlanticus) Location: Titusville, Florida Date: July 8, 2018 I already wrote this one. You can find it below. Ask any angler for a list of their 10 dream species, and Atlantic Tarpon will be on it. Megalops atlanticus entered my dream species list the moment I first watched these silver slabs of muscle erupt…
