By Capt. Jamie Thrappas, Yellow Dawg Fishing
May is the beginning of the summer patterns for us. We may get a few fronts in the beginning of the month, which will trigger good bites. We should start to get a dominant high pressure holding over the state. During May I love fishing the jetty, it produces a ton of fish from slot snook to nice size reds, and if you’re hungry there should be plenty of mangrove snapper to be found. I typically use live mullet for redfish in the spring, I would say that is my most productive bait for redfish, followed by cut mullet, live shrimp, and blue crab.
I typically scan the rocks with side scan on outgoing tides and then set up on spot lock about 20 yards in front of the staged fish and drop my bait of choice back to them. I prefer dead sticking rods in the holders when doing this with light drag & just enough weight to hold the bottom, paired with a 4/0 mutsu style offset circle hook. If the fish are finicky, I’ll throw out a cut mullet or halved blue crab to entice a bite. I like dead sticking rods in the holder as holding the rod usually comes with a reaction to set the hook when you get a bite and more times than not the fish is missed.
For snook I’ll also pretty much do the same set up, use live mullet but I’ll also mix in pinfish and croaker. Drifting outgoing tides can also be productive however be courteous of those holding their spots and also understand you will certainly get much more snags so be prepared to re rig often. When it comes to catching fish for table fare like mangrove snapper my go bait is shrimp or mud minnows. I look for them on the down scan sitting on top of the scattered rocks on both the south and north side of the rocks and I like using a 2/0 mutsu offset circle for these bait robbing fools.
May is beautiful and one of the last months to fish without dripping sweat from the time you leave the dock so get out there! As always if you see us out there say hello and if you want to get your shot at getting a few fish give me a call!
