![]() ![]() After you’ve found them, it’s simple: use a mask, snorkel and fins to collect scallops right off the bottom and store in a mesh bag, available at any dive shop. I recommend going with a guide the first time to learn where and how to look for scallops. Steinhatchee is perhaps best known for scalloping in this area.Ĭatching scallops is easy. Florida’s Big Bend, from the Pasco/Hernando County line to the Mexico Beach Canal, offers a relatively short scalloping season from July 1 to September 10, the only area that I’m aware of that provides for “catch your own” scallops. ![]() There isn’t much that’s easier than crabbing with crab traps, but scalloping comes close. The key is to remember where you placed your traps (I tie a small piece of wood to each trap as a marker buoy and record the location of where I dropped it on my GPS). With two or three traps set out, you can sometimes get enough crabs in one run to make dinner. Put some bait in the cage-a big chunk of ladyfish or the proverbial chicken neck-set the cage out on the flats among the weeds and leave it alone for a day or so. That kind of old-fashioned crabbing can be fun occasionally, but if you want to get serious about crabs, you want to use traps, big wire cages with tapered openings. Kids, by the way, love crabbing in Florida. He has to be close enough to the surface that you can swoop your dip net under him, but not so close that he gets nervous and abandons his free lunch before you can strike. Usually the greedy crab won’t let go until he’s almost at the surface. You toss over your chicken neck tied to the string, then sit and wait until you feel a little tug. The key is to find a little saltwater stream surrounded by weeds. My first efforts at actually catching enough crabs to make a dinner started out the old-fashioned way: a chicken neck, a string and a dip net. I’d occasionally haul up a big blue that was determined to have my fishing bait for lunch, but one crab does not a meal make. I love crabs, but for a long time I was confined to buying them at the fish market. The next step in my evolution as an amateur waterman was crabbing in Florida. A quick scoop with a dip net and you snag ‘em. Then just sit there, keeping a careful watch for the glitter of shrimps’ eyes as they wash downstream in the current. Simply take your boat out into the current, anchor and put a spotlight or lantern on the bow. If you don’t want to learn to throw a cast net, there’s an alternative. I use a net made by Calusa and their video on learning to throw a cast net on their website is very good. You can find various techniques for throwing cast nets on the web. Now I know I said its “simple,” but it’s simple only after you’ve learned to throw your net, which isn’t always that simple. Alternatively, you can go to on the web for a full listing of regulations governing both salt water and freshwater fishing. Your local tackle shop will almost certainly have brochures furnished by the state that give limits and sizes of all sorts of catchable marine creatures. Then it’s a simple matter of tossing your net over the baited bottom and hauling in your catch.īe sure you know the limits, which change from time to time, so that you don’t get in trouble with the fishing authorities. A light source, such as a propane lantern, is a useful attractant and also shows the shrimps’ glittering eyes, letting you know when the run is starting. The idea is to set some baits-cat food with a fish base is good-on a shallow bottom to attract the shrimp into easily netted clusters. You can catch shrimp from a dock or from shore, but using a boat gives you a little more versatility in where you fish. If all goes according to plan, the bait I catch in my net in turn produces dinner via the old rod and reel method.īut when I was living in Jacksonville some years ago, I used the cast net to go shrimping in Florida during late summer in the St. Now that I live in Vero Beach I use my cast net mostly for catching bait. Cast nets are mostly used for two things: catching bait and shrimping in Florida. Once I learned to throw a cast net, though, I began to get more deeply involved in my fishing. I got my share of fish that way, but there was something a little passive about it. Like so many other anglers, I spent years sitting in boats, on fishing piers, or beaches wetting a line, hoping that something tasty would swim by, notice my bait and take a bite.
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