This part of Florida is home to a lot of shallow water, so plan on heading anywhere from 20 to 100 miles out depending on what type of trip you have planned. The famous “Middle Grounds” provide some of the best deep sea fishing you can experience off the Gulf Coast and at its closest point in Tarpon Springs, it is only 75 miles away. From other boat ramps in various towns along the coast, it can be closer to 100 miles out and that is just one way, so you’re looking at 200 miles of driving in a boat to experience the amazing fishing. For other trips, you may be heading 20 to 40 miles out. It all depends what your game plan is and the shallower water means you have to make some longer runs to get to deeper water.
Fishing for Pelagic Fish
What are Pelagic Fish?
Pelagic fish get their name from the area that they inhabit called the pelagic zone. The pelagic zone is the largest habitat on earth with a volume of 330 million cubic miles. Different species of pelagic fish are found throughout this zone. Numbers and distributions vary regionally and vertically, depending on availability of light, nutrients, dissolved oxygen, temperature, salinity, and pressure.
In this part of Florida, it is a very far boat ride out to target the pelagic species of fish, so most anglers will not target sailfish, marlin, tuna, mahi mahi or wahoo in this area. For the ones that do, they may be running 70 to 100 miles out from shore.
Bottom Fishing
Reefs & Wrecks
There are many offshore fishing charters out of this area and many of them will go offshore to fish the reefs and wrecks for a variety of fish such as snapper, grouper, king mackerel, Spanish mackerel, amberjack, cobia, sharks, hogfish, tripletail, jack crevalle, barracuda and more.
Artificial Reef Locations
Visit the reef locations on the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission website.
