Capt. Billy Norris
Wintertime is back and so is the winter fishing! Backwater and offshore have been great this past month, providing both steady action and quality fish! The water temperature dropped over ten degrees pretty rapidly, which means the fishes’ eating habits will change as well. Snook and redfish will be much more lethargic and this lazy behavior means that changing up your bait offerings will greatly improve your hookups. Although they will still eat whitebait, they will be much more inclined to take a shrimp on the bottom. We have been leaving the dock with a mixture of whitebait, pinfish and shrimp to cover all bases. Big jacks will crush whitebait still, but most of the redfish we have been catching have been on shrimp. Some sheepshead have begun to show up as well, and as it continues to get colder we should see more and more of them. The offshore bite has been stellar. There is a substantial amount of red tide lingering, however, it is not nearly as bad as last year. This year’s bloom is in patches rather than covering the entire area. Move around until you find clean water and the fish will be there. On the wrecks we’ve caught a bit of everything this past month. There are schools of big redfish sitting out there, along with some trophy sized snook. Kingfish came in for a quick spurt of about a week, but then pushed back way offshore. In addition, big barracudas, permit, cobia and grouper have been common catches this month. Stone crab season is back in full swing as well, so we’ve been picking up some solid tripletail on the pots. Now that December has arrived, the water should cool down even more and put wintertime fishing into full gear. Start focusing more on sheepshead, black drum, and redfish as the temperature continues to drop. The cooler water should also push the kingfish back in closer to shore, assuming the red tide doesn’t push them away. Fishing was great in November and we are expecting a great December as well! You can check out all of our catches and daily fishing reports on Facebook.com/palehorsefishingcharters!
