Picture of my wife, Kimi
First of all, think of it this way; You are not going to go fishing in the ocean. You are going to fish either the flats or the Gulf of Mexico because there is no ocean here. I would suggest you start out on the flats or from shore until you start getting a little knowledge. The flats are mostly shallow and you might say backwaters of the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the time waves and currents are not nearly as strong as if you went out through a pass. If you go through a pass you will enter the Gulf and it’s a whole different story when it comes to your safety.
If you want to start out and get your feet a little wet you can use my website to learn the basics and if you follow my suggestions you will catch fish. Then as you practice and learn you may want to branch out and go out into deep water in our Fort Myers area. You must go at least around 30 miles through a pass and out into the gulf to reach deeper water at 80 feet or more. You can then fish for larger species such as Grouper and other types of fish.
I’m not saying you can’t catch a very large fish on the flats such as Grouper, Shark, Tarpon or almost any other species. Sometimes though, many of the large species migrate offshore into the deeper water. Goliath grouper for one though, do hang out in shallow water and 200 pounders are not rare.
You can actually get seriously hurt if you hook a large fish with heavy gear so you must know what you are doing before you attempt it. For many of the inshore variety of fish you will use 25 to 65 pound braided line and 20 to 80 pound leader.
Goliath Grouper