Everbody want's in on some of Florida's action!

 A new aspect we will be adding to our site starting today, are specific stories detailing bizzarre and interesting occurances as we travel around the state during our endless pursuit of big-game and our will to spread the word of conservation to all sportsman across the world. And, for our first "happening", do we have a barn-burner for you!

 The right hand man for Team Rebel's operation (Chris Nicklin) decided to take a stroll down the beach a few days ago during the afternoon to try to get on some beach Snook feeding action, but what Chris found last week was not the traget species, in-fact it wasn't a species at all, but a refugee raft that had washed ashore behind what locals reffer to as "Millionaire Mile" on the South Eastern Coast of Florida. The story directly given to me from Chris wasn't the most exciting, he didn't watch the raft come ashore and see a hoard of reugees making a mad dash for the highway, but rather a quiet and somewhat somber discovery. Chris approached the raft to take a couple of pictures and make a few first hand observations before pressing on in his pursuit of the linesider, but from what Chris had said, the materials that made up this craft were somewhat simple and basic, these being styrofoam, Thing galvonized sheet metal, and wood splints of some sort. Chris also noted that the sheet metal had holes poked in it all throughout the craft wherever the metal was present, possibly from being part of an old roof on Haiti or Cuba.

  But the most interesting part of this story is the lack of the Coast-Guard markings on the craft. Usually, when a craft is reported or found, the Coast-Guard will go out to the location of the craft and spray paint it with some sort of neon color, to signifiy that the craft had been found adrift, with or with-out humans inside of it.

  What happened to the builders and occupants of this raft? The truth is we may never know. They may have met a watery fate at sea, or perhaps saw the lights from shore close enough and tried to swim to the U.S.A , maybe they reached land alive, maybe they didn't. But one thing is certain, in the end, you just never know what will happen during your travels in the state of Florida, and thats why we always go back for more.

4th of July report "A Fresh Experience"

On the day of our great nations independance, I decided to go celebrate my freedom in an un-traditional way before the skys began to echo with the concussions from packed gun powder and the streets became obsolete due to clouds of lingering smoke. After sitting around inside all day watching the rest of the "Nation" get drunk to the point they were incoherent by 5 p.m. I tried to rally some of the party folks for the task ahead, and of course nobody was down for the struggle with the 12 hour rainstorms that sat on-top of South Florida all day. So before joining the festivities of the 4th I mobolized to find some bait in search of the ever elusive trophy large mouth bass in the torrential downpour.

I arrived at my bait spot only to find it vacant of the target species after a few throws with the net, but was able to obtain a few large, non- native Mayan Ciclids and decided to head to a little over flow where snook are known to congregate in fresh water during rainstorms.

I arrived about an hour before dark with the rain still flooding the streets and the current was moving strong, this all mixed with the fact that nobody was in sight, all the makings for a good afternoon bite here. I hooked the first bait and threw it up current, on the retrieve I felt that un-mistakeable snook "thump" and came tight to the culprit. After a pretty brutal fight involving a few wrap ups on rocks and tree I was able to pull this freshwater stud out of the honey hole. This is the largest one I have ever pulled out of this particular spot, a little over 40 inches, judging by the size of my size 13 boot.

Fished two more baits to get a little 3lber and then nothing after that, not a bad way to lay into one before the celebration began, all in all, happy I made the decision to go out and brave the storm for a few hours and was able to reap the reward from Floridas legendary canal system.

Until next time...Team Rebel Out!

Team Rebel Report 6-19-10 (Finally back in Action!)

Before anybody tears my head off, we are sorry for the slight hiatus we have been on as of late. We have had a lot of issues to deal with, work, trucks etc. life in general, but the great news is we are back and ready to kick some fish ass! It has been a while so we are ready to tear into the water at full throttle once again! This newest chapter in Team Rebels legacy began yesterday, nothing too exciting, but it was great to be out on the water again!

  We loaded up the truck around 9 a.m. to head to one of our favorite places to wade fish, or fish period for that matter, just because of the sheer size and numbers of the fish living on this flat we discovered when we were about 16. I enlisted the help of Meathook to rendevous with Brendon and Taylor to the north to fish the corect tides. We headed North, but not before meeting opposition from multiple severe thunderstorms on the way up. We reached the flat by noon time and began wading to net some bait............Then we swam across a channel to net some bait................then we swam across another channel to net some bait..........and before we knew it we were almost a mile from the flat and bait was no where to be found. Thus presenting a large problem to overcome.

  We walked for a few hours, to find nothing but some serious gashes on the bottom of our feet and a sunburn to match. The fish were stock piled on our flat and we ended up with only two baits to fish with. I took the 12inch mullet and tossed it to the edge of the flat and fed it a little bit on line as it tried to head up current of the tide, a giant boil soon engulfed the spot where the mullet previously was located and a thump on the line was unmistakeable. After a few brutal headshakes and a couple of close calls I was able to land this stout snook onto the flat. Not by any stretch the biggest we have captured here but nice to feel a stout fish again for the first time in a little while. The other bait we had Meathook fished it, within a minute or two he got blasted and set-up a little too early and pulled the bait out of the Snooks mouth. All in all not to bad of a day, looking forward to heading back with more bait!!

Until Next time....

Team Rebel out!!!

Impact of the Guy Harvey Ultimate Shark Challenge

 

 The show is over and the critics are finally weighing in on this event. Many sat just inside the shadow to keep an eye on what this event was going to be all about, and after its completion two weeks ago, representatives from both the angling and conservation communities are stepping forward and voicing their opinions on this tourney. 

“Our main aim is to reduce mortality, not to keep people from having fun or making money,” Ms. Gornik said. She added that the traditional shark tournament scene was a jarring contrast to efforts to reverse the dramatic decline in shark populations around the world. Hawaii recently became the first state to outlaw the sale of shark fins, most of which are sold in Asia for shark-fin soup.

Due to the success of the outcome of the tournament, many organizations are serenading the tournament creators with wonderful praise and interest for this style of  "angling meets conservation" to hopefully one day replace all the kill tournament formats up and down the Eastern seaboard of America.

To read the full article pertaining to the reaction to the tournament check out the link below, directing you to Patric Douglas's blog at SharkDivers.com

GUY HARVEY ULTIMATE SHARK CHALLENGE IMPACT

Quick Update!!

 Real quick! Just wanted to inform everybody that we have added a new photo album in the "SHARK PHOTOS" section and also added more picture to all the other albums. So check out the new pictures we have posted for everybody that supports the Team Rebel Nation! And Stay tuned for a pretty sweet report within the next couple of days! Tight lines this weekend!

-Team Rebel out!