IS BISCAYNE BAY BACK?

THE BELEAGUERED WATERS NEXT TO FLORIDA'S SECOND-LARGEST CITY STILL HAVE PLENTY TO OFFER.

- GEORGE POVEROMO

As fast as our popping-cork combos hit the water, Capt. Abie Raymond and I hooked a spotted seatrout. These weren't small ones either, but rather plump specimens bird-dogging a tightly bunched school of finger mullet. We released eight seatrout in short order and left them biting. Our objective for the day: Catch a variety of species available to us in Miami's Biscayne Bay.

Raymond and I contained our fishing to the bay's northern reaches, the exact waters we grew up fishing. In fact, most of our effort was north of the 79th Street Bridge. The environment here is far different from the heralded finger channels and bonefish flats within the bay's expansive southern portion, south of Rickenbacker Causeway. It's much narrower up north, with the Intracoastal Waterway, bridges, canals and grass flats as the angling focal points. North Biscayne Bay's water clarity varies based on tides and winds, from a clean or turbid turquoise to cola-colored farther north in Dumfoundling Bay.

EVERYTHING LOVES SHRIMP

Our morning coincided with the beginning of an incoming tide. Given that tide and Raymond's berth at the Bill Bird Marina charter docks, our first stop was Haulover Inlet, a few hundred yards away. Haulover is a narrow and somewhat shallow inlet (13 feet deep on average). Nicknamed the "bull ring," it's a tight and tricky place to fish. Water rages through the passage on calm days. Add in brisk easterly winds opposing an outgoing tide, and it becomes treacherous. However, it provides life to north Biscayne Bay, plus attracts a variety of forage and game fish.

Haulover Inlet was calm that morning, and Raymond was interested in numbers of snook. His bait of choice? A live shrimp on a yellow 4-ounce jig. It was December, and the bay had experienced an early and rather strong shrimp run.