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More Fishing and Boating

• On the Hook: Sweet fishing moments
• Securing boats when hurricanes threaten
• Fishing report: Fay's effects giving way to great fishing

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If you want to get Dad something nice — but not too expensive — for Father's Day, and you want it to give him years of enjoyment, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has a deal for you.

You need to act promptly, though. Buy him a five-year freshwater fishing license before Father's Day, and he'll receive a package of free fishing equipment in the mail automatically within three weeks. The license costs $61.50 and provides for five full years of great freshwater fishing opportunities in the "Fishing Capital of the World."

The license is a great hedge against inflation that may cause price increases in future licenses. Anglers can check MyFWC.com/Fishing to make sure the FWC hasn't run out of the free tackle organizer, lures, hooks, bait saver, fishing towel and publications, among other things that will go to people who take advantage of the offer.

All license sales directly support fish and wildlife conservation in Florida. In addition, every licensed angler helps Florida recover more federal excise taxes under the Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration program. Five-year freshwater fishing licenses are available online at MyFWC.com, over the counter at tax collectors' offices and license agents or by calling 1-888-FISH FLORIDA.

Out on the water, anglers caught a little bit of everything last week.

Fishbuster Charters' Capt. Dave Hanson fished Estero Bay Wednesday with Frank Tota, Frank Witt, and friends Joe and Jim.

"Strange as it might sound, we caught and released a 17-inch bonefish," said Hanson. "I have never seen, much less caught, a bonefish in this area, and I believed them to be a Keys/Caribbean fish. We caught this one on a live shrimp, on an oyster bar in the middle of the bay."

Using shrimp, they also caught two keeper sheepshead and two keeper mangrove snapper, as well as one redfish. They lost two other nice reds, when they ran around the back side of the trees, and cut their lines. They also released a 17-inch snook.

Thursday, fishing with Arnie Roberts and son, Bill Roberts in 35 feet out of New Pass, around rocky bottom, Hanson used liver shrimp and pinfish to catch Spanish mackerel to 22 inches, triggerfish to 14 inches, and yellowtail snapper to 15 inches. They also released two small goliath grouper.

Adam Endorf and Dave Heyworth fished the near shore with Capt. Lindy Yow onboard the High Hopes 2 on Friday and caught and released a 35 pound goliath grouper, two sharks, and more than 40 Spanish mackerel. They used live greenies and cut bait and silver spoons for the mackerel.

Capt. Alex Dolinski just returned from Ambergris Caye, Belize. He and his wife spent the last week there diving and fishing with their friends from Eagle Ray Dive Center.

"We caught 13 bonefish from 1-6 pounds, which was great sight fishing with light tackle," said Dolinski. "Some of the others in the group went offshore, producing kingfish, tuna, mahi and snapper."

The Fort Myers Beach Tarpon Hunters and The Cape Coral Tarpon Hunters Club's had their annual inter-club hunt on Saturday. This annual rivalry between the two clubs results in a trophy exchanged between them at the annual banquets. This year's hunt was a very close match. Each club reported seven tarpon releases. The Fort Myers Beach Club released its seventh fish first, so it will be the recipients of this year's award.

A breakdown of the releases by FMBTH Club: Capt. Mark Combs' boat with Glenn Martin aboard — three releases; Bradley Richards' boat — three releases; RD Rick Dujardin boat — 1 release.

Capt. Ron Kowalyk reported a good bite on the moving water phases last week. The late morning through early afternoon flat low tide phases made for some hard fishing.

"We found reds, snook and snapper early on with a number of upper slot fish hooked," said Kowalyk. "Fly action was particularly good in the way-back creeks of Estero Bay and my crews nailed nice reds and numbers of juvenile snook on chartreuse and white streamers and gurglers."

The tarpon bite seems to have moved again in Estero with only a couple of fish hooked on the south end of the bay. There were numbers of big fish in the passes with oversized reds, big snook to 40-plus inches, cobia and sharks all taking a share of the freelined whitebait. Other mixed bag action in the bays was fair to good with trout, Spanish, pompano, and lots of bluefish to 5 pounds. Flies, jigs, shallow running plugs and whitebait all scored. There were snook, baby grouper and plenty of snapper on the docks off Sanibel. Snapper were running on the medium to big side with a few fish at the 2 plus pound mark. Reds were reported in the Ding Darling along the eastern shores of the bayous and along the mosquito ditches along the Wildlife Drive. DOA shrimp, jigs and smallish whitebaits were the hot ticket for the spot-tails. There are lots of juvenile snook in the refuge.

Kowalyk said the trout bite seemed to be on a roller coaster ride again in Pine Island Sound with mixed reports from day to day, probably stemming from the sluggish midday tides. A hopeful sign though was the return of some pinfish to the flats that may indicate a recovery of the sea meadow after the hurricanes and fresh water encroachment.

Tarpon action has slowed a bit off Sanibel. Early bird surf fishermen reported good snook action with reds, trout, mackerel and bluefish added to the carte du jour. Fly guys were particularly happy with small, light-colored streamers very effective at first light. The close reefs offered up some nice Spanish, bluefish and snapper bites with the every present sharks adding a little light tackle spice to the bite.

Visit Kowalyk's Web site at www.fishswfla.com.

• From Kowalyk's Captain's Corner: The most challenging part of fishing last weekend was keeping in an area of moving water. There was a reasonable bite, but only from about first light until maybe 9 or 10 a.m. You had to keep heading back into the creeks and hidden bays to find a trickle of incoming water. On these essentially one-tide days, although the chart may indicate a sluggish midday tidal phase, the movement is often infinitesimal. If the sluggish tidal movement is countered by wind and barometric pressure it can be hard to finds and stimulate an active bite. Focusing your efforts on bottlenecks, points and the tips of bars can help keep you in a position to optimize what water movement there will be. Points, creek mouths, the edges of channels, bars located on shallow flats and the corresponding shorelines will generally reflect a stronger reaction to whatever wind is available. Even this slight water movement can carry forage, increase oxygenation and have a modest cooling effect, all factors that can encourage feeding activity. Developing a sharp eye for wind eddies can be invaluable. Fish will tend to be most active on the down-current side of these eddies. Wind can be the fisherman's worst enemy and rare times his only friend!

Submissions to Fish Tales should be made by noon each Monday. Contact Cathy Cottrill at 213-6031 or by e-mail at cccottrill@bonitanews.com. Her fax number is 213-6099.