Happy New Year all! December gave us good fishing during the first half of the month with almost too good weather. Clients were actually perspiring on a few trips as the mercury climbed in the 80s. Our only issue in the North Indian River is we still have dirty water, though nowhere as dirty as the past many months. I’m eagerly waiting for winter’s cool water temperatures to take effect allowing our water to clear enough for proper sight fishing.
January and February typically offer our coldest weather of the year. It will become necessary to time our fishing excursions between the onslaughts of cold fronts we will undoubtedly be facing. This is typical winter fish here and can often be extremely exciting.
The hot bite associated with a cold front is usually the day or hours immediately ahead of an impending front. This bite can be fast and furious as the fish will often gorge themselves in preparation of NOT FEEDING for the day or two after the front passes. Why this happens is anyone’s best guess. I think the barometric pressure is the most likely culprit. Still, until I can actually interview a redfish, seatrout or black drum I’ll refrain from professing any real knowledge of the “why” they often forgo feeding after a front passes. When the cold fronts are spaced out with several days of nice weather between them we can expect great fishing during the warming trends. In a perfect world these fronts would come week or so apart. This gives us a pre- front bite and a few days of warming stable weather for the fish to feed “normally” in before the next interruption of declining conditions.
For those anglers with a relatively flexible schedule keeping an eye on the weather will allow opportunities for great fishing. Don’t plan on fishing just because it’s your favorite day to fish, but because it’s the BEST time to fish given the weather conditions. Unfortunately, most people will not have this luxury. I’ll cover some of my preferred techniques for tough fishing conditions next month.
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