Florida is a fisherman’s paradise, no question. There’s something there for everyone: flyfishers can take on tarpon, jacks and even bonefish; baitfishers can have all of these plus redfish, snook and a mass of other species. The offshore gamefisher has sailfish, kingfish, sharks, dorado, wahoo and barracuda and there’s even the odd marlin down in the keys, although the charter skippers are the first to admit that they couldn’t make a living targeting them alone. These days too, swordfish are making a real comeback and catches are being made offshore from Miami the like of which haven’t been seen for 25 years. Hopefully the fishery will prove sustainable.

Apart from the “glamour” species, a myriad of bottom dwellers and reef fishes abound in the warm, turquoise water. There is a sustained reef building project underway all around the Floridian coastal waters where old boats and even bridges are sunk in the Gulf to provide structure for fish. The commercial impact of salt-water game fishing in Florida alone is reckoned to be worth billions of dollars per annum and there is a massive boat, tackle and magazine industry supported by the resident and tourist anglers alike.

If there was someplace that I had to live other than Scotland, I think it would have to be Florida.

Like all Americans though, Floridians don't realise that they have it so good. If they go fishing and only get a dozen or so fish, it's a disaster and anything less than six in the boat will result in questions being asked in the House of Representatives.

This makes the catching bit of fishing much more important than the fishing bit. For someone like me who can actually have blank years when salmon fishing, it is an alien state. To see grown men whinging over what back home would be a massive bag of fine fish is almost, but not quite, comic.

But I confess I'd probably be the same if I were a resident; it's a condition that you could see yourself getting used to.

I can’t claim to be able to give any kind of expert advice on fishing in Florida as I’ve only ever fished around vacations to the Captiva and Sarasota areas of southwest. Apart from saying that July and August are slow months I can add little of value, but there is so much to choose from it would be difficult to go wrong unless you decided to be a total cheapskate and didn’t pay a guide to take you out at least once.

American guides, as I’ve said before, are different from Scottish ghillies. Whilst all of them do like you to get a fish or two, the American guide, at least those I’ve fished with, sees it as his sworn duty to:

1. get you on fish
2. tell you what to do and
3. beat the hell out of every other guide at weigh-in time back at the boat dock. 

They’re worth every penny, but it can get somewhat competitive.

But you can always roll into any Wallmart and roll back out with $50 worth of adequate tackle to mess about with in the surf. I always do that too, and I even managed to take a sizeable snook from a jetty that way once.