By: Capt. Will Hubbard
The bait that is available, very much determines how the entire day may go. We really like to use white bait to chum redfish, snook, and trout. We taunt them to come out from under the mangroves, so when we don’t have a plentiful supply of white bait it can make for a rough day. Trying to cast when the fish are deep in the mangroves will make any anglers day a bad day with lots of lost tackle. Therefore, there would be a smaller chance to catch the quality fish. Fish such as red fish, snook, and trout, put up a good fight and ensure that our clients are happy. This is why every morning we get up extra early to ensure we have time to hunt down white bait or if the low tide is later in the morning we will schedule our clients for an afternoon charter during the winter low tides. This past week our efforts paid off big time when we had clients out fishing in the back country and managed to chum a tarpon out of the mangroves. Not only did we chum him out from under the mangroves, he took the bait and our client landed a nice one and reeled him in! The tide determines when and where we will find the white bait, and that’s why the transition from winter to spring is a huge deal. In the winter the tide gets very low and the whitebait go hang out near the deeper docks and are much harder to find. But during the spring and summer months it’s a whole new deal. As soon as spring comes around the tides get higher and higher. This causes the white bait to move to the edges of grass flats making it much easier to find. You may wonder why we don’t just go by shrimp, but shrimp limits you so much and is not good for chumming at all, as it does not shine in the water like the white bait! That is why white bait matters. If there’s no white bait, there’s rarely quality fish. If you are looking to go on a fishing charter – we would love to take you out!
