by Capt. Mike Anderson
As we step into September water temps start to slowly cool down, which we badly need and the fish start to transition into their early fall and winter haunts and you can actually spend a whole day on the water without suffering from heat exhaustion. For me it doesn’t get any better than working docks and deep water mangrove shorelines with artificial baits and putting together nice stringers of fish. This is normally the month when we can start to do that again. Soft plastic paddle tails like the Marsh Minnow from Mirro-Lure and the paddle tails from Strike King lures will both get the job done this time of year. Snook will start their push towards the rivers and deep water canals and feed on almost anything along the way. This is one of my favorite times of the year to catch that 40 inch snook of a lifetime. As they push towards their winter haunts they feed heavily in anticipation of winter cold fronts and depleting food supplies.
The redfish, which have been tough to find all year, hopefully they’ll show up and feed heavily on the flats this fall as the summer bait hatch finally grows up. We usually start to see new schools on the flats this month.
Big Gator Trout return to shallower waters to feed and the flounder bite picks up significantly on areas of hard bottom. Towards the end of the month we may start to see some kingfish off the beaches and the gag grouper will start to push in shallower and feed more aggressively in the cooler waters. September will still be a little warm on the front end, but normally by the end of the month things will be in full fall swing. Take advantage of the changing conditions and pay close attention to transitional areas as this can be an incredible month on Florida’s west coast!