Sebile's Global and Local Picks for Great Fishing
Lure maker Patrick Sebile's entire life has been centered around fishing and travel. The man has literally searched the globe for the finest fishing and fished the simplest back canal or pond when that was the best available alternative.
That's why Sebile has chosen to live in Florida and continues to pile up frequent flier miles in pursuit of the next bite. So where is his favorite place to fish in the world and what are a few of his favorite fishing holes in Florida?
For a global favorite, Patrick taps Australia's Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea on Nomad Sport Fishing's mother ship charters.
"First thing, to be very clear the organization is top notch," he says. "The place itself is the hero."
The Great Barrier Reef covers 132,974 square miles that encompass thousands of reefs and hundreds of islands teeming with life. The ecosystem is also one of the few places in the world where most of the fish carry the ciguatera toxin.
Ciguatera doesn't hurt the fish, but is deadly to humans who consume fish with high levels of the toxin.
"This could be a terrible thing, but for fishing it is a wonderful thing, " notes Sebile. "If not for the poison there would be fleets and fleets of boats fishing and it would not be as good as it is. The quality of the fishing is outstanding."
Every favorite place has a favorite fish and a favorite time of year. Wahoo fishing in the Coral Sea in August with Nomad fits that bill for Sebile.
"This is the one place in the world where you have the largest concentration of giant, mature wahoo," says Patrick. "Anglers in the U.S. love wahoo, eating and catching them and 3 to 5 fish is a good day on a sportfisher here.
"I have been to the Coral Sea three times with Nomad and while it seems incredible, the 3 anglers in each sportfisher average 30 to 35 wahoo each per day and the average size is 50 to 70 pounds," he adds. "When I told Larry Dahlberg from the Hunt for Big Fish tv show about the quantity, density and quality of fish, he was like, hmmm. He wasn't sure."
That quickly changed. The technique is the captain hooks a fish on heavy tackle trolling a bait like a Magic Swimmer or Stick Shadd. He reefs the fish to the boat and tells the anglers when to cast their lures.
"You cast then watch as the wahoo race to eat your Stick Shadd," says Patrick. "Now you can go online and find several segments of the trip on Larry's show on YouTube. The biggest fish was 105 to 110 pounds and was caught casting a Stick Shadd."
What about home sweet home in Florida?
"In Florida it is hard to pick one favorite, everything depends on the time of the year," says Sebile. "Of course the Keys are beautiful, but the Dania Pier is a great memory. I started coming to the Hollywood Beach area in 1992 on vacation. Some days there are snook caught off the pier, other days tarpon. There are even sailfish caught off the pier some days, although I have never caught one there.
"I live in Fort Pierce on the Indian River now," adds Patrick. "I love the Indian River, I live right in the middle. I chose to live on the east coast of Florida. There are not as many fish as the west coast, but for the trophy fish it is definitely a better area. I believe there are more trophy fish here, especially snook. I was walking home from the farmer's market along the water and I saw a 45 to 50-pound snook, my dream fish. Of course I had no rod, all I could do was look, dreaming one day it would bite one of my lures."
"Another place that is easy to get to is the Port Charlotte/Boca Grande Pass area," concludes Sebile "This is a place where I leave my boat at home, there are just so many great guides. There are giant tarpon, lots of reds and trout and the fishing for goliath grouper is very good, especially near Boca Grande Pass. The size of the fish is super big and they are very close to shore, which makes it nice when the weather gets rough — you can get back to inshore waters in a hurry. That is a place at the top of my list."