As the fall mullet run gets into full swing, thousands and thousands of quality baits are easy pickings. The mullet are great live bait for kingfish. Slow troll a couple until you find some kings, then stick with the school as long as you can. Mullet make great cut bait too. Just about everything that lives on the bottom will eat it. We’ve had great success snapper fishing with cut mullet. In fact, there has been several spots where the red snapper were so thick, after chumming for a while, that we had to leave after catching 50 or more. We’re after mangrove snappers, but it’s common to get covered up by the red snapper on a lot of rocks near Sebastian.
We finally started seeing some big sea bass again lately. Go after them with some lighter tackle. Smaller 4 OT hooks and 30-pound test leader has been working well. There’s also a nice vermillion snapper bite now. Use a chicken rig with squid for the vermillion snapper and you’ll also catch trigger fish using the same rig.
Cobia has been closed from Georgia to New York for over a month now and we are definitely seeing the payoff. I haven’t seen cobia so thick in years! Just be prepared for them to show up. Have a rod rigged with a jig and one with 50-pound test leader with a nice live bait hook ready to go. Many of the cobia we have caught have been following fish we are pulling up off the bottom and they are following sharks around as well. If you’re ready for them when they show up, you have shot.
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