Inshore Fishing in Florida

Florida is where American guided fishing goes to show off. Lake Okeechobee's open sweep of freshwater, the bonefish flats of the Keys, the Gulf Stream running blue off the Atlantic coast, every kind of water an angler could want, and a guide fleet built around all of it. Snook, redfish, tarpon, largemouth bass: the marquee species live here in numbers. Barrier islands, mangrove estuaries, and long river systems give each region its own character, and the fishing changes accordingly.

The saltwater options sprawl along both coasts. On the Gulf side, guides work redfish and trout from the Panhandle's Destin down through Naples and the Ten Thousand Islands, while offshore boats haul snapper, grouper, and king mackerel off the same ports. The Atlantic answers with the Space Coast near Cocoa Beach, tarpon and snook country, and then the Keys, where flats guides pole after bonefish, permit, and tarpon by day and offshore crews chase sailfish and mahi-mahi off the reef edge.

Inland, the state belongs to largemouth bass. Lake Okeechobee (the "Bass Capital of the World" by its own advertising, and it has the fish to argue the case), keeps guides busy threading its reed lines and hydrilla beds. The Everglades blurs the line between fresh and brackish, with peacock bass, largemouth, and panfish sharing water in a landscape unlike anywhere else in the country. The St. Johns River and the Harris Chain of Lakes round out the freshwater circuit, producing bass and crappie in every month of the year.