Although the weather has been less than ideal over the past couple of weeks, the fishing continues to be excellent!
Mangrove snapper have piled up on shallow water structures throughout the bay and have been quick to bite for the most part. Anchoring up current and dropping back a flat lined live glass minnow, shrimp, pilchard or similar baitfish should get their attention. If they are hesitant, you can always use a chum block to get them in the mood to eat. If you are catching a lot of small fish, try throwing a medium sized pinfish – that usually keeps the smaller fish away long enough for bigger fish to find it.
Trout fishing has also been very solid throughout the bay on flats that have thick, healthy grass. I like flats that have features such as potholes, flooded reed shorelines, inflows of water and shallow sandbars adjacent to deeper water because that’s where fish can lay up and ambush prey. Points consistently hold good numbers of trout and other species. Points offer areas that transition from deep water to shallow water fairly quickly and feature varying speeds of current. The most effective lure that I use for trout in just about any circumstance is an old school three inch D.O.A. artificial shrimp. A variety of colors work great, but my “meat and potatoes” colors are Near Clear, Copper Crush, Arkansas Glow and Bloodworm.
The redfish bite has been killer in some parts of the bay but just okay in others. During this time of the year, there is a lot of pontoon boat and personal watercraft traffic as you get close to the beach so, if you’re going to be fishing anywhere near where that type of activity, then I suggest you get a very early start and expect to be out of there by lunch time. The boat traffic tends to decrease as you get deeper into the bay and you can get into some better redfishing action.
With the popularity of chasing redfish on the rise, there is also an increase in fishing pressure put on them. This makes patience, stealth, lure selection and casting distance/accuracy more important than ever. That’s why I generally use lighter, more compact lures that land softly and require little movement to draw strikes. Some good choices are small gold spoons, 1/8 ounce jigs (both bucktails and rubber jigs) and small topwater or suspending plugs.
As always, if you have questions about what’s biting, how to catch them or want to book a trip, give me a call or shoot me an email.
Good luck!
