Catch Fish Now! - Destin / Ft. Walton Beach Fishing Fundamentals

How to Catch Fish Now
in the Destin / Ft. Walton Beach area

Like most avid anglers, I don't care what I catch, as long as I catch something and the weather isn't too miserable whilst I'm fishing. The past fifteen years have taught me plenty about how to catch fish in the Destin / Ft. Walton Beach area. Most of all though, is the small assortment of artificial and natural baits one would need to pretty much cover the full spectrum of saltwater fishing available here.

When I look at all the boxes of tackle and all the different rods and reels I own, my mind wanders away to the days and days of fishing in the area. Hot and muggy summer mornings tossing a live shrimp onto the shallows or under a dock for redfish and trout. Cold and windy wintertime days throwing silver spoons around schools of bait on the beach for ladyfish, redfish, and bluefish. Crisp fall days throwing plastic grubs in the bayous catching a ton of speckled trout - all great memories for sure. What does all this have to do with "How to catch fish in Destin / Ft. Walton Beach"? Simple. Each time I went fishing for a particular species of fish - no matter where it was I was fishing - I ended up pulling out the same baits over and over again and fishing them the exact same way. And guess what - I caught fish.

Granted, I'm no tournament fisherman like the guys you see on ESPN or TNN on the weekend shows - but I can and do catch fish. What I'm suggesting here is this: you don't need a $500 rod and reel or a zillion different expensive lures in a zillion different tackle boxes to catch fish in the area, whether you're on vacation here or you live here year round. I'm going to gear this discussion toward the occasional visitor to the Emerald Coast area as they are the ones more unfamiliar with the local waters - and try to show you how easy it really is to Catch Fish Now! Ok - let's begin!
Your Weapon

The rod and reel you use is completely up to you - whatever you're comfortable with or whatever you have laying around your garage. My favorite combination is a two-piece, medium action fiberglass spinning rod, about 7 ft long. I've got a medium size Shimano spinning reel as well, and usually keep about 150 yds of 10-12 lb line on it. You could bring all your rods and reels and have quite a "quiver of arrows" like the guys on TV....if you can afford all that gear and want to carry it around, good on ya. Me, I have one favorite rod and reel for this type of fishing and do quite well with it - and I only have to lug around ONE rod and not 15. If your favorite rod is a bass rig, great! If you like light tackle (ultra-light type stuff), great! Whatever you like, bring it. Just a word of warning though - there are some big fish in the area and they will make short work of light line if your drag is too tight or you're fishing too close to the rocks / pilings.....not that I've ever lost a fish that way....
Ok - typical scenario - you get roped into a trip to Wal-Mart for paper towels or milk or some such nonsense - and your wife lets you alone for a minute to go play in the sporting goods section - yahoo! Once you get there amongst all the rods, reels, knives, nets, lures, frozen bait - all is well with the world. You are home. But now what? You've decided you're gonna go fishing (you brought your favorite rod) but just exactly what are you gonna tie on to the end of your line? Easy. I've made up a list of lures and other tackle that will make your fishing experience fun and easy. Here we go!

Tools

Pliers / Leatherman - you need these for pulling hooks out of the fish, or pulling hooks out of your thumb!
Clippers - clip line, clip your nails, clean fish gook from under your nails when the fish aren't biting...
Small Filet Knife - gotta have something to clean all the fish you catch. Also use to cut bait.
Small Rag - you can use your wife's kitchen dish towel...just don't let her catch you. Rags are priceless when your hands are all slimy and you're wearing the shorts your kids got you for your birthday!
ZipLok Bags - sandwich size, to put bait parts in so you can store it in the freezer till next time.
Small Bait Bucket - gotta keep your bait alive, right? Make sure you have a long rope to tie it up to a pier.

Artificial Lures

Minnow Stick Bait - I have a couple of floating Yozuri minnows and a 12 year old RedFin about 6 inches long with a small lip. Any minnow bait will do - especially the new Lazer Eye baits at Bass Pro Shops or the Yozuri minnows. You just need a couple of them, but make sure they are silver sided (mackeral color, black, blue - doesn't really matter). They work inshore and offshore for any species of fish. I've caught trout and bluefish on them locally, kingfish in the Keys, barracuda in the Azores, grouper off Baja, and bass in New Mexico....get the picture? Use these everywhere. Throw them around dock pilings and shallows in the spring and summer mornings or along the grass flats just about anytime. You can even throw them when surf fishing in calm weather any time of the year. You can try different retrieves - jerk it or just a steady retrieve - just depends on how aggressive the fishies are that day. Very versatile bait.

5 inch Twister Tail Grub - These are great for windy days or covering a lot of water quickly looking for the fish - kind of like using a spinnerbait looking for bass. I have an assortment of white lead heads (with red eyes) from 1/8 oz to 1/2 oz for deeper water. For some reason, white and clear with silver flakes are the best colors I've found. Flounder love them (especially with a bull minnow or shrimp tail on the hook), trout love them, redfish love them, and puffer fish really love them! When you reel in the grub and small bites are taken out of it - it's a puffer fish. Not a very good eating fish (unless you're Japanese?), but good fun for the kids when they blow themselves up. I digress. Use different retrieves here too - long jigs or short jigs, constant jig and retrieve or jig and pause - just depends on the fish. These jigs even work in the surf for whiting, redfish, or flounder.

Hopkins / Johnson Spoon - I have a couple of these from 1/2 oz to 1 oz and in silver and gold colors. These are great for throwing around schools of bait either on the beach or in the bay. Bluefish, ladyfish, and even redfish attack these ferociously. This past Thanksgiving I was throwing one of these in the surf around a large school of glass minnows and caught the biggest redfish of my life! Fought it for 25 minutes and finally landed it - easily over 25 lbs. You can use the Johnson spoons (weedless) over the grass flats as well. Make sure you have extra treble hooks for the Hopkins spoons when fighting bluefish though - they tend to bend them all up! You can also replace the treble hook with a single hook for easier releases.

Believe it or not, those three baits cover the water column from top to bottom. Yeah, I know there are a thousand different baits on the market in a thousand different colors. If you have the time (and money), knock yourself out - try them all. I've tried a lot of the colors (some work, some don't) but these basic baits work great. If I was going to recommend some more artificials, I'd say get some DOA Shrimp. Find them at any tackle store or Wal-Mart or their website www.DOALures.com. Fish these just like a jig along rocks or above the grass or under docks / pilings - they work great! At least now you'll have a starting point with artificials. Now on to natural baits!

Natural Baits

Shrimp - Probably the best all around bait in the whole state of Florida! Go to any bait and tackle shop and they'll usually have a nice supply of live shrimp for sale. Heck - even the gas stations have shrimp for sale! They come in a bunch of sizes and if you ask, you can get "selects", which means the bigger ones. These are usually a little more costly, but bigger baits mean bigger fish right? (at least I like to think so...)

There are a bunch of ways to fish with live shrimp, fly lining being the most realistic to the fish. By fly lining I mean just a hook on the end of your line and a shrimp on the hook - no weight or other contraption, just a hook. That way, the shrimp can swim around normally - until he gets chomped! What size hook? Use a hook about the size of your thumbnail (should be close to size #4). Circle or octopus hooks work (my favorite) or just a plain shank hook. Hook the shrimp on the back of his head but be careful not to put the hook through his brain - you'll see the black thing inside his head, just ease the hook through the shell in front or behind his brain and he'll be happy. The hook should only pierce a tiny portion of the shell, not the whole head.

Fly lining works great in the early mornings or late evenings near docks, piers, or other "stick ups" - just like bass or crappie fishing. The fish hang out there looking to ambush their breakfast or dinner as it floats by. Fly lining live shrimp also works great at nights around piers or docks with overhanging lights - the small baits are attracted to the light which attracts the big fish that eat them. Toss a shrimp at the outer edge of the light and hold on. If you toss the shrimp right in the middle of the light, the small fish will nibble your shrimp till it's gone. One thing about shrimp - even the small fish like to eat them. If you keep getting small nibbles in a certain spot, the small fish have found you. Move to another spot - unless you want to catch small fish...

Other ways to fish with shrimp: make a slip rig and fish around the pilings of a bridge or pier. Sheepshead, snapper, and black drum hang out there and eat small crabs, minnows, and your shrimp! Making a slip rig is easy. Take about 2 ft of 25 lb line (takes abuse from the barnacles and rocks without breaking) and tie your hook on one end. On the other end, tie a barrel swivel. Now on the line from your reel, slide an egg shaped slip sinker (kinda like a plastic worm sinker, except shaped like an egg) on first, then a small bead (keeps the sinker from going over the swivel), then tie your line to the swivel. Easy! Now, your bait will go to the bottom and when the fish hits the shrimp it doesn't feel the weight - until you set the hook. The slip rig is easy to make and works great for shrimp or minnows or sand fleas (another name for sand crabs). You can use the slip rig in the bay, from bridges or piers, or even in the surf. Surf fishing is easy using a slip rig - use a sand flea or chunk of shrimp. In the Spring there are endless lines of pompano cruising the beach that will gobble up a flea or bit of shrimp - pompano are one of the best eating fish in the world!

Last bit of advice when fishing with shrimp. They'll live plenty long enough if you take care of them. Invest in a good bait bucket (I like the slow troll kind with the yellow top and spring loaded door) and don't let them sit in the sun too long.
If you don't get a bait bucket, here's a trick to keep them alive:

Get a small styrofoam or lunch size igloo cooler and put some crushed ice in the bottom. Put some wet newspaper over the ice (about 4-5 sheets) and put your live shrimp over that. The shrimp should stay alive (but in suspended animation) until you use them. Once they hit the water, the spring back to life. Just make sure they don't get in the ice water or they'll die.

Dead shrimp work ok, just not as good as live ones. If you're going to use dead ones, pinch off the heads and put the hook through the body. When shrimp die, they turn bright pink (like they were boiled), and their heads become loose fitting ornaments on their bodies - and don't last long when casting or getting nibbled on. Dead shrimp work best in the surf - just chop them into bite size chunks, put them on a hook, and toss them out. You never know what you're going to catch in the surf! Dead shrimp freeze well too - for your next trip.

Bull Minnows / Finger Mullet - both excellent baits when fishing for...well - anything! Flounder will not let one pass by without eating it, trout love them, redfish love them, sheepshead and pompano don't love them. If you can't get shrimp, then get some minnows. Bait shops (or some gas stations) have tanks full of these guys right along side shrimp. The good thing about using minnows is that the small fish that nibble on shrimp will usually leave your minnow alone - so if you get a bite, it's usually a fish you want to catch. The best way to fish minnows is the slip rig - both from the surf or pier or boat. You will need a bait bucket for minnows.

Terminal Tackle

Hooks - as I mentioned before, a size #4 hook will serve you well (the opening should be approximately the size of your thumbnail) when fishing with live bait or shrimp chunks or sand fleas. There are a million sizes and styles - I like circle and octopus hooks. The good thing about circle hooks is that you don't have to set the hook. When you feel the fish strike your bait, you lift your rod steadily and just start reeling with a steady pressure. The hook is designed to pull toward the corner of the fishes mouth - and you increase pressure by reeling and lifting your rod a bit, the hook will do all the work. Just make sure the hooks are sharp and if you're going to release what you catch, why not pinch the barb down with your pliers? It's good conservation and a very sportsmanlike thing to do.

Weights - you'll need some egg sinkers in sizes from 1/8 oz, 1/4 oz, 1/2 oz, and 1 oz. Wal-Mart has little boxes of them in all the sizes you'll need depending on how deep you're fishing or how fast the current is. You should also have a box of assorted split-shot weights when fly lining shrimp - to keep them from wandering too far from where the fish are and letting the shrimp swim around without too much resistance.

Swivels - get some barrel swivels for slip rigs, with closed loops on both ends. Not too big or not too small. What's that mean? Well, about the length of your thumbnail will do fine. Also try to find some small beads (they're pink) to put on your slip rigs - they work as a spacer between your egg sinker and the swivel.

Line - you'll need a small spool of 25lb leader material (plain old monofilament will do) for slip rigs.

That's it! Sounds really simple - actually, it is. With this small amount of stuff, you can catch just about every gamefish in the Destin / Ft. Walton Beach area. For that matter, I've fished the West Coast all around the Tampa Bay area and caught plenty of redfish, snook, sheepshead, and trout using these same techniques. You really don't have to spend a lot of money (you're probably already spending way too much on your vacation anyway).
Now for the important question...where do you catch all these fish? Start off on the beach or try a pier or one of the many bridges around the area. If you want specifics, get our book CATCH FISH NOW! on Florida's Panhandle. We've got detailed maps and directions to all the great spots to fish in throughout the entire Panhandle.

Last but not least, if you've got limited time or energy, the huge numbers of charter boats are another great way to catch offshore species as well, from grouper to red snapper, from cobia to kingfish, from marlin to dolphin. That's the one good thing about the Emerald Coast - the fishing is awesome no matter where you go. Good luck and good fishing!

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CATCH FISH NOW! on Florida's Panhandle