Fishing Report
Spring has sprung in many ways inshore! We are seeing snook in the passes, and even onto the beaches already. We are seeing the mangrove snapper trickle back to the docks and structures too. We have seen the tarpon start to show back up around area bridges and there is tons of bait around right now. The mackerel are back thick around local fishing piers and were hoping to see more of that action as water temps get right.
While spring action heats up, theres still some winter time trends persisting too! Trout are still around too, and we have seen some monsters caught lately even around the jetties and bridge at night. The redfish bite has been steady and some schools spotted around the bay areas too. The sheepshead have started to thin a bit but are still pretty common. The flounder are picking here and there and we got triple tail on the markers and buoys!
Fishing Report
Mackerel are back in town near shore! This makes our 5 hour half day even more fun as we troll on the way out and back and catch some mackerel on the trolling spoons behind the planners. Also, we can offer those near shore trolling private charters for 3,4 and 5 hours for a great price to troll up plentiful mackerel and relax while we cruse the beaches. Plus, there are already early reports that kingfish are around on some of our southernmost near shore artificial reefs. This is a great start to what will hopefully be a very long and fruitful spring run of kingfish and mackerel!
Hogfish action has slowed a bit since the peak of our hog fishing fun in the cooler months, but we are still picking up quite a few near shore. They are best on the ten hour all day trips using the live shrimp and lighter tackle, but they are definitely thinning out on us a bit and becoming more tricky as waters warm up and clear up too. Plus, as more mangrove snapper, lane snapper and other heads and tails start to become more aggressive its more and more tricky to target the hogfish with success near shore too.
Lane snapper are definitely a great addition to our near shore fishery right now. We are seeing these guys out in force as of late and we are seeing good numbers, larger sizes and big concentrations. We are definitely enjoying plentiful lane snapper using cut threadfins, squid and even shrimp too. They will bite just about anything and makes them easy to see in big numbers when they are biting well.
Mangrove snapper action is going pretty good in our deeper near shore waters once we pass around 70-80ft of water. They aren’t huge and we aren’t seeing tons but were seeing good numbers of some keeper sizes up to around two lbs or so which is pretty large for shallower waters near shore.
Fishing Report
The triggerfish have re opened and we are seeing some big boys out there in deeper water that are big enough to keep. We do sometimes see triggerfish even as shallow as the five hour trips near shore, but often they are not going to be big enough to keep when you encounter them more shallow than around 100-120ft of water or shallow offshore. They have to be 15 inches to the fork which is typically a 17-18 inch fish overall. We see them biting on a variety of baits from live bait to dead baits, but to target them something really chewy is best like a strip of bonita or more commonly used is a squid strip about two inches long by about a quarter inch.
The big mangrove snapper have been steady for us offshore too. We see them best while fishing at night or through sunup or sundown on our 39 hour or 44 hour trips, but we do get a good pick on our 12 hour extreme trips and offshore private fishing charters. We do see some near shore too on the ten hour all days, but they are definitely most common in larger average sizes as you approach that 100ft mark that separates the near shore and offshore areas.
Red grouper fishing is going well for us too even in the deeper near shore waters, but offshore we have much more opportunity for more consistent keeper sizes. We are looking for them on the potholes and smaller structures or the flat hard bottom areas. We are using live pinfish, pigfish, squirrel fish and other live baits. However, they love some dead bait action like a big threadfin or squid strip. While fishing deeper offshore I like using cut fish too like a grey snapper or white grunt plug or butterflied up. The red grouper are very smell oriented so something really slimy, smelly and oily is a great option like boston mackerel or cut bonita too.
We are starting to see more pelagic action offshore now too. This time of year we see the African pompano more commonly and sporadically around during our offshore trips. Plus, the kingfish show back up this time of year too. Blackfin tuna start to move in a bit more commonly and finally we see the wahoo around offshore too.
