Time and Tide Crucial for Fishing the Flats

When it comes to fishing the flats of Florida or Belize, Costa Rica or Mexico, you can't do better for a guide than Mr. Henry Waszczuk. If you check out his TV show, Fishing the Flats, you're guaranteed week after week of exciting trips to far-flung locales all in the pursuit of nature's most challenging sport fish.

Waszczuk is an unlikely provider of fishing the flats TV. Born in England in'50, he crossed the pond with his family as a toddler. Football was his first love, playing for Kent State, and later professionally, before setting down to teach high school Science for a decade or so. It was around this time he began fishing the flats in Florida and elsewhere.

Before you knew it, Waszczuk had his own fishing magazine, and he turned years of angling experience into dynamic fishing the flats TV. Any given week, the viewer can watch Waszczuk and crew take on a new adventure. One episode might deal with fishing the flat (and ultra-skinny) waters of Charlotte Harbor, Florida, seeking the mighty redfish in its winter habitat.

Then there's the thrill known only to the angler who dares to fish the flats of the Florida Keys for tarpon, a creature known to tip the scales at one hundred pounds. Speaking of fishing the flats in Florida, feisty reds can also be found in the mangroves of Clearwater, an experience unequaled for those seeking pristine outdoors scenes.

Florida is not the only east coast site to provide angling pleasure. Fishing the flats of North Carolina, in Pamlico Sound, is known to yield giant reds for the sportsman willing to be guided by Waszczuk.

Down around Sanibel and Captiva Island in the southwestern part of the state offers the chance to fish the flats for snook, tarpon and sea trout. To fish the flats here, which are thick with turtle grass and studded with oyster shell bars, is practically guaranteeing catching some redfish, which hunt the baitfish hiding in the oyster shells.

Exotic locals alone do not make for riveting Fishing the flats TV. Your host, Henry Waszczuk, also provides knowledgeable guidance on gear. What kind of skiff is required to fish the flats of St. Augustine for flounder, for example? What kind of rod is best, what kind of line, what kind of lure?

Any question you may have about fly fishing the flats is sure to be answered in the course of watching this show, or perusing Waszczuk's magazine called "Fins and Skins."