I always had good luck with day charters in the waters around Captiva and Sanibel. I enjoyed surf casting along the Sandibel Causeway. I am not much of a fisherman but it was Florida. That made it fun for a Yankee.

It’s called fishing not catching. Get a guide or find some like minded folks and go out with them and get some pointers.

Try freshwater. I hear they have some enormous Bass down there!

B, Iirc correctly you relocated from Or. primarily because of politics. I get it. But the W. Coast has some great fishing opportunities. Guessing you did some of that.
Never been to Fl. I know many here live and love it there. But the more I learn about it, aside of some of the politics I would never go there. A friend recently relocated there. She sends me some vids from there. She has family and knows it there so knew what she was getting into. But the hot, humid rains, bugs, reptiles, house built on stilts and what have you. No thanks. Also the fishing is totally counter intuitive to what you came from so none of what you are experiencing is a surprise. I hope you can figure it out. I guess I would call it more swamp fishing
I have fished my whole life and have zero interest in going to FL to fish or to do anything else for that matter.

Wrong lures..

Offshore use 1# DuPont plugs; inland use 1/2# plugs.

I used to go out on a "party boat" or "head boat" out of Ft. Pierce on the friday night trip. Get yourself a cast net and get some live pin fish along the edge of the intercoastal. I caught a few nice mutton snapper and grouper but also got skunked a few times.

Head west to Alabama and hook up with the Barrons for real fish catchin’

https://youtu.be/GfLQ6B_rMyg

Target one species, learn from others and trial and error what works. I fished for years in NJ, salt water, took a lot of time to dial in what we were doing, then I got really good. We had very nice boats, a typical Saturday fluke fishing for dinner was around $90/lb. That cost would be way up now with the price of fuel.

Don't you know that every fish story ends with the one (really big) big one that got away?

The level of frustration that is coming across leads me to believe that the OP may not enjoy fishing as much as he had hoped. Fishing like most complex activities can have a difficult to overcome learning curve, and in general it is an inefficient way to provide food for a family in terms of dollars and time spent. If a person does not enjoy the activity enough without the reward of taking home a fish or two, perhaps the time would be better spent on a different activity?

quote:

Originally posted by SpinZone:

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Welcome to Florida,

They will slso literally “toss” you the packaged fish so you can truly claim you caught it. So I’ve heard.

Hey, don't steal Washington's bit! That's in Seattle at Pike Place market.

And if that's the attitude I got from a charter boat, I'd be sure to have a review on every website starting with Google accordingly.

I have no luck catching fish either. Or harvesting deer. Both noble pursuits are now distant memories.

“Don’t worry Doc we’re not using hooks today”. In an earlier scene Doc removes a hook from the fisherman’s finger.