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Where is the bonefish fishing in Florida?

Bonefish are a fish of the far south, in the Keys and Biscayne Bay, and in Florida every one goes back: the species has been catch and release only since September 1, 2013.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission lists bonefish, tarpon and permit among the inshore fish of the Keys, and the Park Service points to the bonefish habitat in Biscayne National Park. Permit share the same South Florida flats, which the commission says are famous for permit fishing, and its researchers call permit a harder catch than bonefish or tarpon. The 2013 rule also ended the tournament exemption that let anglers carry a bonefish to a weigh-in, and it bans multiple hooks with natural bait when fishing for them. Tarpon, the third fish of the flats, are catch and release too; a tarpon tag, one per person a year, is only for chasing a state or world record, and a tarpon over 40 inches stays in the water. A Florida fishing license is required in Biscayne and Everglades national parks just as it is outside them.

Where to go from here.

Biscayne National Park

Miami-Dade County. Four systems meet inside it and each depends on the next: the mangrove forest along the shoreline, the shallow water of Biscayne Bay, the northernmost Florida Keys, and the coral reef offshore.

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Everglades National Park

Miami-Dade County. Congress authorized it in 1934 and it was established in 1947, and it was the first national park created to protect a fragile living system rather than a mountain or a canyon.

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Generated image of an Atlantic tarpon leaping clear of turquoise water on a Florida Keys flat, spray flying.

Where is the tarpon fishing in Florida?

Boca Grande Pass, between Gasparilla Island in Lee County and Charlotte County to the north, is the name everyone knows - the fish stack up in the deep pass in May and June and the boats work it shoulder to shoulder.

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