Inshore FIshing Report
Sheepshead are thick right now around the docks, piers, bridges, jetties and other hard structures of the bay area. We are seeing these guys super active and prolific around the area biting on a variety of baits, but typically small pieces of shrimp are a go to on lighter tackle around the structures with minimal weight. They are a great go to when tides are not optimal or the water gets murky behind nasty weather in the cooler months. When all other fish are unreachable or weather is adverse, huddling under a bridge and catching sheepies is always an option!
Trout, much like sheepshead, don’t seem to mind the weather and almost bite better during these times. WE are seeing a lot of trout action around the bridge especially around the bridge lights at night. During the day, we are seeing them working the shallow flats, oyster bars, and mangrove shorelines. Typically, as water cools, they move a bit more slugglishly and are looking for the crustaceans or soft plastics. Mirror lure provokers seem to be a trout go to with a super light jig head as of late. However, the super fluke soft plastics and even the tride and true paddletail is always around.
Flounder action is also going steady throughout our bay area waters. We are seeing a decent number of flounder caught around our back bay water flats, edges, and potholes. They love the soft plastics on the bottom or just above bottom but my favorite is an imitation shrimp, like the DOA shrimp. They will take live shrimp, mud minnows, or creek chubs too but even smaller pinfish will lure in a big flounder.
Snook action is pretty much receeded to the upper bay, back bay and back country areas with these fish tucked back into the rivers, creeks, and bayous trying to hide from the cooling water and weather. They are looking for those areas they can regulate their body temps and try and stay a bite more warm. Look for them in the deeper holes of these areas, or in the sun drenches shorelines, especially where that dark muddy bottom can absorb and thus radiate a bit more thermal heat and energy.
Nearshore FIshing Report
Hogfish action is what we are about near shore right now, they are biting well on the 5 hour half days, 10 hour all days, and near shore private fishing charters. With the heavy east winds behind this nasty weather they make a great target when its difficult to make it far from shore. They love the live shrimp, lighter tackle, and the bag jigs, banana jigs, or knocker rigs. Check out the roggies rigs we have in our shop and those 2 ounce ‘banana’ jigs are crushing the hogfish with live shrimp tipped on the bigger hooks. We also use around 1-2oz egg sinkers and around a 3-4hook on a knocker rig style set up when not utilizing our custom banana jigs from roggies rigs. These hogfish will take some rock shrimp, sand fleas, or even fiddler crabs but the shrimp are typically our bait of choice for the hogfish that also allow us to catch plenty of lanes, mangroves, and more while targeting the hogfish near shore in around 40-70ft of water. This is the time of year to get out there and try your hand at the hogfish, just remember, they are the great equalizer and can take everything to really dial in. They are often super frustrating to try and target with consistency but tons of fun for that reason. People often will be mislead or misunderstand that even when hogfish bite is at its peak catching more than 15-25 in a ten hour all day trip is a feat and a half. More than 30-40 keeper is really unheard of so often its only one or two per group, but sometimes anglers will get lucky. Just recently, a first time fisherman from the great white north (Michigan) caught 4 of his 5 keeper hogfish during a trip! You never know with these fish and they are so good eating and challenging to fight to the boat. That is what makes the alluring hogfish on hook and line so challenging and fun in my opinion.
Lane snapper action has been super steady near shore too lately as we target the hogfish on our 5 hour half days and ten hour all days. It’s a great time to get out there and fill a stringer with lanes while you may get a hogfish or two and a mangrove snapper or three too. Plus, of course, plenty of the good eating white grunts or grey snapper as we affectionately call them too!
Offshore FIshing Report
We are pumped for our offshore long range overnight trips to resume mid February 2024, but for now in the interim we have our 12 hour extreme trips running out there to crush the mangroves, yellowtails, muttons, lanes, vermillions, porgies, almacos and more! Plus, we have seen some kingfish, cobia, wahoo and other pelagics lately too. The last 39 hour of the 2023 year just got back yesterday with a nice pile of fish, after a long, cold and bumpy grind. They really put in the work and the effort to try and put together as many good eating fish as possible.
Remember, our red grouper fishery will re open January first and were hoping for a similar season to what we had in 2023 and hopefully will have plenty of time to exact our revenge on some of these deep water red grouper we have been seeing. The Flying HUB 2 will have tons of trips out there to crush the red grouper and big mangroves and yellowtail while the florida fisherman is in dry dock the month of January and early February getting new paint and lots of loving for an even harder fishing year of 2024!
