by Capt. Bart Marx
Hello fellow anglers, it is October once again. This is the month that things start to change with the weather patterns. Yes, this helps things to move around, as the water cools, migrations start. The kingfish will start to travel south following bait and the seventy-two degree water temperature. Also, the big breeder reds will be coming close to shore to feed up for their travel into the gulf to spawn. You may find them as you troll for the king mackerel, yes using a planer and a spoon rig.
This month has been billed in the past as Red October and the reds seem to be everywhere and hungry. You may find the large schools along the ICW where there are plenty of pinfish for food. At times there may be thousands or just a few, fifty or so. This is a great time to carry your fly rod to battle one of these Pit Bull redfish, as Mark Sosin called them a few years back. Just saying they are lots of fun, they pull hard a twenty-eight plus inch red.
Inshore there should be some snook around willing to test your angling skills and even a trout. This would be a good month to catch an inshore slam snook, red, and trout. Looking out into the gulf, the lane and mangrove snapper will be hungry in fifty to seventy feet of water. It has been my observation that the natural bottom has been producing better than the artificial reefs for the snappers. Oh yah, the fifteenth of October stone crab claw season opens for those of you that scuba dive at night lol. They are tasty and it is lots of fun to go into the water at midnight and a kick to harvest them. And it is time that the groupers will be trading places- the red will migrate out deeper as the water cools and the gag grouper will move into shallower waters. It is a natural thing that happens as the water temperature falls. October’s full moon is good night for snapper fishing in the gulf.