Happy New Year everyone! I hope it’s getting off to a great start, and here is your fishing forecast for January. This can be a very interesting month around the Palm Beach area, everything really rides on cold fronts. If the wind blows hard and the temperature drops, you can expect the fishing to really pick up. In the inlets, we should be catching sheepshead, small to medium jacks, and some Spanish mackerel. On the beaches, I would expect to find mackerel, pompano, and bluefish, A Goofy Jig or tipped bucktail will normally get you some sort of action quickly. This is a great time of the year to carry a big spinning rod rigged up with some wire and be prepared to pitch a chunk to a passing spinner shark.
In the fresh water, everything is going to depend on water temps. Sometimes January is amazing and other times, at least as far as peacock bass go, it can be quite a struggle. Depending on temperature fluctuations they will move from deep to shallow and back to deep in the same day and a lot of times, where largemouth and sunshine bass are schooling right along with them. Clown knifefish don’t really seem to mind the cold as much as the peacocks. This is probably due to them coming from Asia. A proven tactic that works this time of the year is to troll a deep diving crank bait until it gets hit and then focus on that area. As always, live bait will continue to produce fish pretty much anywhere & anytime.
Good luck out there!
Patrick Smith
www.swamptosea.com
captpatrick@swamptosea.com
561-503-0848
