CAMOCT2018
Cool Breeze Hot Bite
Capt. Brian Smith
Ahhh October, the real month when North Florida starts cooling off. Fish develop appetites as water temperature begin to cool down. That is good news for fishermen!
Open season for the hard fighting amberjack last until the end of this month. The best bait is a live pinfish or pigfish. Large jigs, in your favorite colors, work fine as well. Plugs and topwater baits are fun to use as mobs of AJ’s will chase them down. It is a great idea to replace the treble hooks with a single J hook on the rear. I tie-on a tassel of flashabou to the J hook to give the lure a bit of kick. Whatever bait you use, amberjack put an explanation mark into a days fishing.
Why there is a closed season is beyond me as the population is so abundant that you can literally hand feed them. If the limit was dropped to two fish per boat at certain times, it would give anglers an opportunity for enjoyment and a good meal. Sport fishing, catch & release, doesn’t always dovetail with the conservation ethic as some fish are gut hooked or die of exhaustion. There is no benefit to tossing a dead fish back. “Sharks have to eat”, is true, but they should earn their living. This should apply to red snapper as well.
Grouper fishing will improve markedly Oct-Dec. The start of the southern migration of baitfish will get the grouper greedy. The problem is the red snapper and grouper are cohabitants of the same live bottom. Considering the abundance of red snapper, it is neigh impossible to target grouper. One trick is to use large live baits or large cut bait cut in to steaks. Steaking the cut bait, as opposed to fillets, allows the skin to protect the meat from being pecked away to the point snapper can eat it. Trolling is a means to reduce snapper by-catch, however, snapper do take large diving plugs. Kingfish can be a happy by-catch to trolling!
As the regulation are now, expect to unnecessarily kill a few red snapper while grouper fishing. As another red snapper floats away, it forces one to wonder about the validity of the regulation.
Inshore anglers are experiencing a fall run of hard hitting fast running Spanish mackerel as of this writing. The fall run will only improve. Spanish in the fall are much larger than the ones that pass through in the spring. If thirty pound leader material doesn’t prevent cut-offs then twist on a short section of #1 or 2 single strand wire. Flashy jigs or spoons cast or trolled work very well. Schools of bait, mostly seen in the mornings and evening are hot spots.
Trout and red fishermen will be enjoying hot action on the flats using their ‘confidence’ bait of choice.