Hopefully everyone had a great holiday season and a safe New Year. The last few weeks have been great near shore and offshore.
Sharks, cobia and tripletail have been hanging pretty close to the beach. For tripletail I like to use a small bucktail tipped with a piece of squid or a live shrimp with just a small shot of weight on it. Tease them with it a little and most of the time they will eat it. A #4 treble hook with a live shrimp works great as well. Tripletail makes some of the best eating around. You’ll find them free swimming and holding to pieces of weeds, buoys and anything else you can find floating.
Cobia have been hanging out in the same areas as the trips, so have the bucktail with squid ready. There are many things you can use for them. If they’re hungry they will eat, so to speak. A bucktail tipped with a whole squid has been the best for us.
Pushing a little farther out, Pelican and 8A have had some stud kings on them. I have been using many different baits since live bait is a little hard to find this time of year, so have your dead sardines handy. If you can’t find any bunker to net, try sabikying some of the buoys or wrecks on the way out for some blue runners or threadfins. Live bait will normally work better.
Mahi, wahoo and sails have been showing themselves, as expected this time of year. Although there’s specific tactics and ways to target each specifically, I use smaller Islander lures with small or naked ballyhoo. Wahoo can be targeted with a little more speed in your troll. This is the time of year they are around in greater numbers. Don’t put too much effort into running the heavy gear. You will catch all these species on “king” gear on the reefs just fine.
Good luck, See you out there.
Capt. Chris Cameron
Fired Up Fishing Charters
firedupcharters@gmail.com
www.firedupcharters.com
www.sharkfishingcocoabeach.com
(407) 222-3573
Your premier fishing guide charter for shark fishing Cocoa Beach, offshore fishing Port Canaveral, and nearshore fishing Cape Canaveral.