Welcome to paradise! OK, you are not going to believe this ... but some fishermen are looking forward to COLD WEATHER and we have had some chilly nights. That is right; November's weather had a few cold snaps in it with some mild days. So, last month's prediction that there would be plenty of Redfish on the pier looked pretty good and there was. December, well we can just hope that it will not let us down.

Starting with the Pensacola Beach Gulf Pier where the catch of the day have been Flounder, Black Drum, and Pompano with the nice Redfish stopping by for a bite. The fishing has been pretty good at the pier last month for those properly rigged. Flounder have been biting live shrimp as well as small grubs with a taste of shrimp on them. The best time for Flounder fishing has been early morning along the pilings.

In December, you can hope to see along with the drop in water temperature more Redfish and Sheepshead. Sheepsheads are showing up now and can be seen now swimming around the pilings from mid pier all the way to the end. They will be caught along the pilings using shrimp and fiddler crab. Sometimes the sheepshead is so fast in taking live bait that it is difficult to hook the guy. So one way to catch this bait thief is to chum an area with shrimp or bits of shellfish. After the Sheepshead have begun to feed, cast with a small ¼ ounce jig. They will get him!

The Sheepshead is a large porgy. It reaches a maximum weight of about 20 pounds. It's coloration is silvery to yellowish white, with an olivebrown back and five or six dark slightly diagonal bars along each side. It uses it's flat long teeth to crush mollusks and crabs and to scrap barnacles from rocks and pilings. The best thing about them is that they taste a lot like Red Snapper to me.

Captain Buddy Rogers is telling me that the fishing offshore is great for Grouper and other species. He recently had an overnight charter to the rigs with our local chapter of the "Fishin' Chix" who braved the 24hr charter to turn in a great catch.

I talked to Elese Woollen about their charter and she was very excited to say it was an awesome trip. She had Fishin' Chix President and Founder Claudia Espenscheid email me and this is what she had to say about it

"The Fishin' Chix gained a whole new appreciation for how vast, and full of impressive marine wildlife, the Gulf of Mexico truly is...and who would have thought that an oil rig could be so beautiful at night?! On our most recent adventure, aboard the Reel Eazy w Captain Buddy Rogers, we were out for 24 hours....and filming our newest episode of "Fishin' Chix TeeVee" (which currently runs on BLAB TV every Saturday at 5pm). Fueled by massive adrenaline -- we weren't there to sleep!-- it felt like we were breaking world records...the way we kept bringing in one fish after another... It was amazing seeing 8 anglers bring in a total of 53 fish...yellow fin tuna, black fin, amberjack, and even a barracuda! This was not fishing...this was CATCHING! Two 70 pound yellowfins, caught by Fishin' Chix Prez and Flounder Claudia Espenscheid and avid angler Chix Marsha Baumert, topped off the enormous and overflowing ice chests. Whew...we headed back...exhausted, but happy beyond measure. Captain Buddy and his crew are 'Reel Keepers'!"

Now I have been on a few of those trips and I can certainly say that you must do this if you like fishing. The fish are huge and plentiful which Captain Buddy likes to refer to some of his spots out there as Jurassic Park!

Inshore and around the docks you can catch some really nice 'slot reds' and speckle trout. They are taking all kinds of baits from live shrimp, plugs to my favorite DOA Shrimp Baits. At night I favor fishing with the white one that glows. Casting out along a lighted dock, pop this bait along and redfish and specs cannot resist it. Also, fishing around the docks with live shrimp along the bottom is producing some really nice flounder bites too.

I wish everyone a very Happy Holiday and I hope to see you fishing!

BLACKENED TUNA FILLETS

Ok I have done this when I lived at the condo and every neighbor I had thought there was a fire!!! If you do not have a huge hood with a powerful fan, then do this outside so that you are not bribing the fire department with blackened tuna.

INGREDIENTS:

1-1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
6 Tuna Filets, 1 inch or so is fine. I like mine thick so I
can cook it rare to medium rare.
3 tablespoons Chef Paul Prudhomme's Blackened Redfish Magic
Lemon Juice
Garlic, Crushed

Redfish, Snapper, Pompano, Tile Fish, Trigger Fish, Amberjack, Mahi Mahi, Catfish everything is good cooked this way if you ask me. So, if you do not have Tuna, then just find a nice filet of fish and you will be fine!

DIRECTIONS:

Now there are various ways you can do this. One is to have what some us down here call a "Fish cooker" which is an outdoor cooker that resembles a flame thrower with legs. That is my favorite but you can also call it a butane cooker. Or you can heat a cast-iron skillet as hot as possible on your kitchen stove, at least 10 minutes or when the bottom is white hot. When the coals are glowing, use very thick potholders to carefully transfer the hot skillet to the grill. You have to repeat this process with every batch you cook. The goal with anyway you do this is HOT!! The iron skillet must be hot!

Ok, you will want to make some melted lemon garlic butter which can be made to taste. I like mine with a lot of lemon and garlic, you might just want butter, which is fine to because it is hard to mess up this dish.

Dip each filet in the melted butter so that both sides are well coated; then sprinkle the Blackened Redfish Magic generously and evenly on both sides of the filets. Place 1 or 2 filets in the dry, hot skillet and cook uncovered over high heat until the underside becomes deep-brown, almost black (but not burned), about 2 minutes (the time may vary according to the filet's thickness and the heat of the skillet). Turn the fish over and pour 1-teaspoon butter on top of each. Cook until fish is at the desired doneness, about couple minutes more. Repeat with remaining filets.

Serve immediately.

It is important to remember that when cooking more that one batch of fish, the skillet should be thoroughly wiped out in between batches to remove all burned particles and butter -- or these will produce a burned taste.