brand new to the area, fishing info needed (Sebastian, St. Lucie: live, cost)

[tenacious31]

I just relocated to PSL from NJ and am looking for some information about fishing in the area. I was a successful fisherman in NJ, I had a 24' boat and could catch fish on every trip. Up there, there were only a handful of species that could be caught, down here is a different world to me. I downloaded a fishing app on my phone that identifies most of the species and tells me if they are good table fare or not, but gives no hint of where or how to fish for them.

I don't to the whole head boat thing. I have a boat down here but would like to cut my teeth on some land based fishing until I'm comfortable with catching some "foreign to me" species, and seeing what they eat and when. I figure it will be a bit more cost effective than burning hundreds of dollars in fuel to figure out I'm fishing the wrong tide or wrong bait. I would assume that structure fishing is very good down here so fishing from rocks or docks should be pretty good. That said, I could use a little advice on what rigs, hook style/size, tides, etc. to fish. Basically any information is better than me playing the guessing game and rolling the dice.

I can't say what I want to fish for, anything really. I have a bunch of gear and rigs that work up north, some of which might work here as well.
If the same question was posted to me about my old area, my answers would look something like this:

"this time of year, stripers are what you want. surf clams or fresh bunker cut into chunks 1"-3" wide on a 6-0 - 8-0 circle hook thrown off the beach should produce some fish. Fish finder rigs work well, keep your reel in free-spool with the clicker on. Let the fish run with the bait, when the clicker goes off, give the fish 10-20 seconds to eat, the circle hook will prevent you from gut hooking them. If your not into soaking bait, casting plugs along the beach and around jetties or docks can be productive. I like bombers and stretch imitator jr's in peanut bunker patterns. slack tide is usually pretty slow, the outgoing tide usually produces more fish for me. Keeper sized fish are usually caught in big water, but juveniles can be pretty thick in the back creeks. you might encounter some bluefish as well, they eat the same things as the stripers and are usually in the same areas. smaller ones are decent table fare, let the filets soak in milk overnight prior to cooking them or just smoke them, they are better than most people will tell you as long as they are prepared correctly."

any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

[HarryWho?]

If you find yourself anywhere near Vero or Sebastian, go to Sebastian Inlet. There's always a lot of fishing going on there and you'll be able to get all the advice you need. I'm not familiar with the fishing situation in PSL.

[JERSEY MAN]

Fishing by bridges and docks are productive sometimes. A local site where captains sometimes post is ST. Lucie Inlet.com they have the local weather and tidal conditions along with live camera shots of the inlet and Manatee pocket. Out of St. Lucie inlet to the south about 2 miles is an area called Pecks Lake which is productive and many of the local and some commercial guys go. Sailfishing is productive in the winter months. Also check out another site, Martin County reef program. They give the location of all the offshore reefs that I go to. Good luck and "Fish em up".

[alsidw]

Fishermen here are very secretive, and fresh water fishermen have lockjaw and fly fishermen are very private- in my experience anyway. I do not have a boat and finding bank to fish from is challenging and finding fresh bait is hard. I am sure there are great places but so far I have not been able to find them in my first year here.