Inshore: The weather has certainly been cold, so the fish patterns are rapidly changing. One of the best ways to fish when the weather is like this, especially this time of year is to cover a lot of ground. When you find the fish, you can catch them. We’re going to get some cold weather this month so be ready for it. Some of my best days fishing have been when it’s so cold, nobody else would even think about going. When it’s like that you want to hit the creeks and rivers and throughout our region, we have hundreds of them that feed our bays. The best ones are the larger ones that have deep holes in them. You’ll find these holes mostly in the sharp bends of the creeks. Don’t be scared to go far up the creeks. I’ve caught trout over a mile up the river and people have caught them further than that. Once you find these holes I like to prospect them. Throw live shrimp or soft plastic bait to the bottom and see if you get some bites; if you don’t, move to the next hole. Once you find them, you’ve got them! You can also find these fish up in the bayous along the dark muddy bottoms. Fish will get stacked up in the medium depth water where the sun can still shine through to the bottom and warm them up. Remember, the colder the better. Redfish are somewhat the same; they’ll be huddled up with the trout but they don’t seem to be as cold natured as the trout. This time of year you’ll find quite a few redfish on the outer edges of the bayous working their way back and forth from the deeper holes and the darker bottoms, towards the back of the bayous. Most of the time you want to fish soft plastics or live shrimp if you can find them. The fish are a little more lethargic and won’t be quite as aggressive. All this can change when the weather warms up. All fish, including bait, will move quickly out of the bayous and back into the bay and on the flats during a longer period of warmer weather. They don’t hibernate, they just hide from the cold just like we do.
February is one of the best months all year for sheepshead. They’re starting to spawn pretty heavily and the fish will be stacked up along bridges, jetties, and other structures. There’s no exact tide that’s best for the sheepshead bite, but if I had to pick one, it would be slack tide. The only reason is that it’s easier to position yourself along these bridges and easier to feel the finesse bite of a sheepshead. Try to bring something to scrape the pilings to chum them up, or even bring a bucket of smashed up oysters. If you get a good chum going you’ll have sheepshead right up under the boat. The best baits are shrimp and fiddler crabs, and remember that the smaller the hook the better. If you think it’s too small go a size smaller. Don’t forget our Sheepshead Shootout fishing tournament is scheduled for February 29th, 2020!
Offshore: February might be a slow month for keeping fish, but it’s still a great month for fishing. The bite has been great as of late and should continue to be good all month long. There have been a lot of jacks stacked up on big steel structure. Any barge, ship or things of that nature is a great place to start. The big bull mingos have been out on the edge pretty thick. As I said before there’s been a lot of bait inshore so that hasn’t been as big of an issue as the last couple years have been. All the inshore wrecks are pretty stacked up with ruby lips, squirrel fish, rock fish, etc. Be sure to check out the FWC rules because they change more often than not.
CAPT. PETER WRIGHT, JR.
The Ships Chandler
646 E. Hwy 98
Destin, FL 32541
850-837-9306
www.theshipschandler.com
