BANANA RIVER LAGOON: Deeper canals and dredge holes in the Merritt Island and beachside canals are good places to start your search for redfish, speckled trout, sheepshead, and black drum on most mornings this month. The cold overnight temperatures usually bring these fish species into the deeper more stable waters located here. Live shrimp are the number one choice for bait danglers. There can also be very good action when using lures like a white, chartreuse, brown, or black colored buck tailed jig tipped with a piece of shrimp. The buck-tail flows and moves well in the colder water, and when combined with Bang! or Pro-Cure scent products, can even out produce live shrimp on some days. Whiting, silver trout, sand trout, and weakfish are other species that anglers are likely to catch this month while fishing these deeper areas. If we get a few days of warm weather between fronts redfish may push out onto the shallow flats to sun themselves and forage for shrimps, crabs, and small bait fish along many of the shorelines along the Banana River and also into the Newfound Harbor and Sykes Creek areas. Until next time….Catch a memory!
PORT CANAVERAL: The colder water temps we usually experience this month bring good “action fishing” to the waters just outside of the Port. Bluefish should be the main species anglers are likely to encounter. They will hit buck tailed or plastic tailed jigs, Krocodile or gator style spoons, lipped diving plugs like the Rapala X-Rap minnow, and of course live shrimp. Other species that will take live shrimp this month are whiting, pompano, black drum and weakfish. Look for the whiting and Pompano along the surf break and the weakfish and black drum on the ships channel buoys, or near-shore wrecks like the Mohican just north of the ships channel. There should also be a good sheepshead bite around the jetty rocks and dock pilings within the confines of the Port itself. Small crabs, shrimp or sand fleas usually get them to respond.
Capt. Jim Ross
Fineline Fishing Charters
www.FinelineFishingCharters.com
(321) 636-3728