From Capt. Gary

I found the key to Pandora's Box about three season's ago and slowly opened it.  Late last summer and into early fall the box was open enough that things started to click and this summer the lid blow off.  The cork craze seems to be in full swing and since George has included it in his Rant, amongst other things, let me through in my two cents.

I am thrilled to see some many anglers catching fish without bait.  As an angler, you are fishing and you get to experience the bite on a world class fish...great stuff.  George is right on the numbers.  Enjoy a great day of fishing but don't get caught up in the numbers game.  As for the tournaments, I agree with George 100%.....keep the tournaments to the little fish....weighing in one fish is better than cranking in a huge number of big fish for a prize.  These fish are a prize!!

A word on the tackle.  "light tackle"  may not be quite the best way to talk about what we're using to catch old drum on corks.  I grow up surf fishing with big surf rods and when I came here used extra heavy spinning rods and 8000 series reels with 25 and 30 pound test mono.  With the advancement of tackle designed for braid, rods and reels are much more capable of landing a  big fish in a short time than even just a few years ago.  I fish MH spinning rods, really designed for fish other salt water heavy weights, like tarpon, permit, snook and so on.  The reels have drags designed to handle as much drag as those old 8000's.  So with 30 pound braid, lots of drag, quality reels and rods, we are able to land these fish in 6 to 8 minutes....about the same time we always landed them.  That's a true time as recorded on camera on a number of fish.  So, no more harm to the fish.  Make you jigs barbless to reduce your release time!  Keep your trout rods at home until October!!!!

Enjoy and appreciate one of the best fisheries on the planet....it's our resource now and for many years to come if we all take good care of it.

Looking forward to the vodka!!

 Capt Gary Dubiel