[dropcap]I[/dropcap]’m really excited about the month of September. The fish will start putting on the feed bag, as fall is about to arrive. Large flounder will start moving in from the ocean for the last two weeks of the month and sight fishing for them starts. Speckled trout will be coming in and the fall bite on the inside will be on. Pompano will be on the inside, as well as running down the surf zone of the ocean. Croakers and pigfish will be on the bite in the sounds and waterway. It is another great time of the year to be fishing here!
Drum fishing in the flooded marshes will be firing off this month. Look for wakes and tails as the sign that they are there. I like to use worm hooks that are rigged weedless for this fishing. Look in the direction that they are moving and cast a couple of feet in front and wait till they get closer…then lift the rod and twitch. That gets me the most hits. Fishing popping and rattle corks over the grass flats with live bait will consistently produce. Live shrimp is king but mullet and menhaden will draw the bite also.
At the end of the month, flounder will be on the banks, feeding on the mullets that are running the waterway. You will be able to find them by watching for them to air out as they attack bait. Now is the time I like to fish soft plastics that I rig on worm hooks. A shrimp pattern works well for this, especially in a scented bait like DOA, Slurp, Blurp ( my favorite) and Gulp, or any other bait that is scented. I like the Slurp shrimp because it tends to glide like a bait that has been hit. When you see a flounder “air out,” stop and start casting. Most of the time, it is not alone and you should be able to catch more than one in that area. I also use 20-pound fluoro for leader, as most of the fish will be in the four + pound size, so you will need it.
As for speckled trout, as we near October, the spawning will slow down and they will start eating to put on fat for the winter. Fishing topwater will help you locate them. Once you do, they should eat it most all day. Other than live bait, MirrOlures (18 MR and 2000s and 52M are my choice here) and soft plastic on small jig heads should do the trick for you. I look for current breaks and oyster rocks to hold them.
For pompano, I look for them to run the waterway and river sub-channels. Sometimes you will see them as you slowly move through the channels on the low tide. Yellow bucktails tipped with shrimp work well for them on the inside. Along the beach shore, sandfleas work great, especially the one that are soft-shelled or the ones that have eggs. Virginia mullet as well as flounder and many other species will also eat them. Don’t cast too far out, the fish will be feeding right behind the breakers.
Take the kids fishing now. Spot, croakers, pigfish and many other varieties are running now. Keep it simple with a #1 gold hook with a 1/4-ounce split shot along with a couple of bags of Fishbites or a box or two of squid–the smaller the bait the better, so bait stealers will have a better chance of getting hooked. Fish edges and tips of oyster bars as well as deep holes. This should yield many bites. If you aren’t getting bit, just move around until you do.
Have fun out there and remember that fall fishing is just around the corner. Be sure to watch out for the other guys as they will not be looking out for you.