A Place to Winter
If you're a retired Wisconsin outdoorsman looking for a cost-effective, warm weather place to spend some time with the wife each winter and catch a lot of fish too, take a look at St. George Island Florida. I'm here on the last day of my second spring mini-vacation with Lori and Taylor and other family to visit my in-laws, Dick and Mariel Henske, who found this honey-hole 15 years ago. They return each winter following essentials like the deer hunt and Christmas to spend a few months away from the cold and snow of Manitowish Waters in Vilas County.
Dick Henske is a retired Wisconsin Principal and writer for OWO who hunts and fishes Wisconsin, Canada and the western states and brings those stories back to you. Mariel, my mother-in-law, is a retired teacher, and current runner, kayaker, bicyclist, and basically way too good looking for my father-in-law, who can be described as "crusty" at best. But he's a very good outdoorsman as he approaches 80, so we welcome him on OWO staff.
Dick Ellis's daughter Taylor shows how it's done with another sheepshead landed on St. George Island.
St. George Island in Franklin County, Florida is located along the Gulf of Mexico in north Florida's panhandle 80 miles southwest of Tallahassee and 80 miles southeast of Panama City, The Island is accessible on US Highway 98. By air, Franklin County can be reached through commercial airports in Tallahassee and Panama City. Now for you retirees, St. George Island offseason rates really drop from November through February, and start to drastically climb again in March. But what do you care? You're heading home again to Wisconsin to spend the spring through fall. Those winter rates mean you can snag a beautiful one-bedroom, one-bath home on the water for $1175 per month to a 4-bedroom, 4-bathroom place for $3500 a month. Bring your friends and split the cost. There are no high-rises on St. George Island. For more information, connect with www.resortvacationsproperties.com/welcome2013 or call 888-207-0665 or 850-927-3838. No, I have absolutely no stake in this, but it is really a nice place to escape Old Man Winter if you can afford it.
Lori, Taylor, Mitch Groth of New Berlin, sister-in-law Kristen, and brother-in-law Doug Cullaz and their kids Carter and Julia invaded Grandpa and Grandma for a 5-day visit. The girls wanted sun and fun and the boys wanted fish and more fish. Taylor and Mitch purchased online 3-day non resident saltwater fishing licenses for $17 through the Florida Fish and Game Department. I bought the 5-day option for $30, and Grandpa already had the seasonal non-resident license for a little over $50. We also ran into lots of Badgers and people from other Big-10 states that were working the Gulf mostly for pompano. Most notable was a group from Michigan that started killing the pompano on shrimp when a thick fog rolled in on us in mid-afternoon April 8. They had 13 pompano, a great-eating, hard fighting silver football, in less than two hours of action. They also lost more.
Mitch Groth of New Berlin wrestles a hard-fighting Gulf of Mexico sheepshead while on break from college this week.
Depending on the time of year and water temperature, on St. George Island you can also target resident fish or migrating species that include blue fish, spanish mackerel (not to be confused with "holy mackerels"), speckled trout, and our favorite target, sheepshead. Don't confuse the Wisconsin sheepshead or roughfish with this seawater based, great tasting, hard fighting and beautiful fish. You want to target these. The legal limit is 15 sheepshead per day per angler, with no possession. We had a fish fry that was simply stated, unsurpassed in any Wisconsin restaurant. And that is saying a lot.
To start, Henske and I traveled on the island to a place at low tide where the holes of a thousand fiddler crabs were clearly visible. After turning up the dirt with a spade shovel, we'd catch the crabs with our fingers and toss them in a 5-gallon bucket. The price paid is the occasional pinched finger. The reward is 50 crabs for bait in 20 minutes. And oh my goodness, do the sheepshead want those crabs. Using crappie rods that extend to 15 feet or so and pack in again for easy travel with other gear, we rode bicycles a mile to the "cut", where we worked our barnacle eating friends from rocks.
OWO columnist and great grandpa, retired Principal Dick Henske of Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, takes two more sheepshead on St. George Island.
What a fight. What a kick to catch or lose sheepshead and watch your own kids do the same. We lost way more than we caught, and it was amazing to see the number of anglers, both residents and non who approached us to ask what we were using. That's Henske for you. Regardless of where he is, he finds out what works. And if he doesn't know what he's doing, he's also a great liar. I think after this blog my Christmas present this year is losing value by the minute.
That's it for now from St. George Island. Just so you feel better, OWO May-June issue is deep in production and that means lots of work for me from this road show. But not so much that I won't be catching another sheepshead or six in about 30 minutes.
Thanks for connecting with On Wisconsin Outdoors. We appreciate you, and you're always welcome here.
Shoot straight.
Dick Ellis