September is one of my favorite months to fish both inshore and nearshore from Melbourne to Sebastian. The bait is plentiful and the snook, trout and redfish are as well.
Snook season opens September 1, and anglers will be out in droves trying to get their keeper fish. With the opener this month, the inlet will be packed day and night with people on the jetty and people in boats. The crowds don’t always bring out the patience that is required when fishing, so keep a cool head in the heat of the day and night and you will get your limit. Live bait during the day is best and live bait, jigs and lures all work well at night.
We have had schools of mullet from Palm Bay down to Sebastian and south, but the best part of the run normally starts late in the month. Threadfins and sardines, as well as mullet, will be on the beach nearshore—and so will the tarpon, snook, sharks and jack crevalle. There will also be kingfish following the schools of bait looking for that easy meal. Best bet is to use some of that live bait and fish the outer edges of the bait pods.
The mullet should also pour into the creeks from Melbourne down to Sebastian later in the month; the gamefish are sure to follow. Hopefully the rains won’t be too bad and the freshwater runoff into the lagoon will be minimal by then. There is no need to go way back in the creeks; anglers can fish the mouth of the creeks and around the many oyster bars and docks closer to the Indian River Lagoon. I use the same baits in the creeks as I use in the lagoon during the bait run.
The sea grass is returning in many spots in the lagoon on the flats as well as around some of the spoil islands and mangrove shorelines, and they have been loaded with bait most of the summer. The grass will keep the bait around and should help the fishing tremendously as long as we don’t get too much rain like we did last fall. My favorite hard baits to use are Rapala’s Skitter Walk topwater and Twitchin’ Minnow and Twitchin’ Mullet subsurface baits which always work well for fishing the mullet run. If soft baits are your preference, D.O.A. jerkbaits or D.O.A. C.a.l. 3” shad or Rapala’s new Crush City Jerk, Mooch Minnow and The Mayor paddletail will all work well during the mullet run on jigheads, but with the grass returning we may have to start using more weedless hooks.
Capt. Glyn Austin
Going Coastal Charters
www.goingcoastalcharters.com
321-863-8085
