S15:E6 - “The Lower Keys Highway” (2020)
Captains Tom Rowland and Rich Tudor head to the Lower Keys for Tarpon and various types of Jacks.
S15:E5 - “Blackfin In The Keys” (2020)
Captains Tom Rowland and Rich Tudor venture to the Atlantic oceanside of the Keys for Blackfin Tuna.
The Florida Everglades make up one of the most well-known and treasured American National Parks. They are also being “strangled” by water issues. Since the damming of the Kissimmee River, the Everglades’ primary source of freshwater, this beautiful fishery has seen “endangered wildlife populations, declining water quality, water mismanagement, [and] extensive urban and agricultural development,” according to Captains For Clean Water, a conservation organization dedicated to restoring the health and natural beauty of the Everglades. Read more on Waypoint…
S15:E4 - “Up From The Deep” (2020)
Captains Tom Rowland and Rich Tudor head out from their Middle Keys home base to deeper waters.
The Florida Everglades make up one of the most well-known and treasured American National Parks. They are also being “strangled” by water issues. Since the damming of the Kissimmee River, the Everglades’ primary source of freshwater, this beautiful fishery has seen “endangered wildlife populations, declining water quality, water mismanagement, [and] extensive urban and agricultural development,” according to Captains For Clean Water, a conservation organization dedicated to restoring the health and natural beauty of the Everglades. Read more on Waypoint…
We say, the 7 foot 8 to 17-pound class rod is about your best all around. You can do a little bit of everything from snapper fishing to small Tarpon and everything in between. Then it comes down to what kind of rod. Well, we've trusted St. Croix Rods for quite a few years now and they are just the absolute best quality rods and they make a variety of different model rods from the good, better, and best type model.
Here in the Florida Keys, the fishing can be very very difficult. We're looking for every single advantage that we can get. We love to fish for Bonefish, Permit, Tarpon, Redfish, things that stick their fins out of the water or that will make a disturbance with the bait or if we find the bait we can find the fish. One great way to do that is to use binoculars on the flats.
My first job in the fishing industry was a fly fishing guide in Wyoming and Idaho. I started at the very very bottom and my first job was to have to change all the bearings on everybody's trailer because that's really what got us to the river and back safely. So I learned how to change bearings and I got to be pretty good at it but I never really liked it. And I never really wanted to do it.
So we just got our new Yellowfin 26 and it is fully rigged out with a Lowrance Electronics package. The thing that I'm most excited about with electronics this year is I got the new Lowrance Halo 24 Radar. This is a super-compact radar and a 24-inch dome and it just has some awesome features… One, it's twice as strong as any radar I've ever used on my inshore boats. It's got a 48-mile range so I can see a storm or boats just way out away from me make good decisions.
So traditionally we use Power Poles on our Skiffs and our Bay boats. It's been just a game-changer for us to be able to use these on boats and stop on a dime. We can be pursuing a fish, hit a button and instantly and quietly stop so we can cast that fish instead of having to drop a bulky anchor. We can just push that Power-Pole down and shallow water and stop the boat.
We often get a lot of questions about how to have a better day on the water. Whether that's catching more fish or bigger fish or whatever. But I can tell you that the best way to have a better day on the water is to start the day out well. A lot of people trailer their boats and a lot of days are kind of ruined at the boat ramp. Boat ramp etiquette is a huge thing and it's really not very hard to do. It just takes a little bit of consideration and a little bit of forward-thinking to where you're prepared when you get to the boat ramp. So when you pull off of the highway and you come to your boat ramp chances are you're not ready to put the boat in so don't go and back right down the middle of the boat ramp.
Over the years, the number one feature that I have relied on with my GPS is the charts themselves. I’d often put GPS points in where the head of a channel is, we would save our runs in when we had low visibility. Through the years it has constantly been improving and now we have Florida Marine Tracks. There is so much detail, every marker in the Everglades, every detail in the shallow water and they have even drawn in running lines.
One of the key elements to having a soft, dry, comfortable boat ride on the water is trimming your boat efficiently. Starting off the boat is trimmed all the way down, that will help us get on plane quickly. Once we get up to about 30mph we will start to trim the motor up and there is a sweet spot there when you get the trim perfectly.
