By: Capt. Billy Norris
The moment we have all been waiting for has finally arrived, and brutally hot, rainy days have transitioned into cooler waters and comfortable fishing! We’ve begun to switch gears and are loving the arrival of our cold-water fish like tripletail, cobia, and kingfish!
Bait has been easy to get for the last few months. The beaches have all had pilchards and herring on them. Although they’re shallow, its typically been a one-and-done net throw to black out both wells. However, as the water temperatures continue to drop, we will start supplementing in shrimp as bait. Some of our soon to arrive winter staples like sheepshead, tripletail and permit won’t eat baitfish.
The backwaters have been very productive over the last few weeks. There have been plenty of snook around, along with redfish. Some nice sheepshead have been around as well, although we haven’t seen them in the big wintertime schools yet. The water is currently in the mid 60s, so the snook should be moving further into the back, pushing up creeks and rivers, many even so far that they are in fresh water. Wintertime snook are more lethargic, so have patience and look for them in areas where they might be sunning to warm up. There have been some trout around in our area, but it is still a little bit early for the trout-crushing days.
Offshore has continued to be solid. Whether we’ve been looking for predators or table fare, we haven’t been disappointed. Sharks have continued to hang around in big numbers. We’ve consistently been catching blacktips, spinners, hammers, sandbars and have even spotted a few tigers around. If you’re trying for sharks, it is pretty basic, big, bloody baits and heavy tackle. Make sure that you have beefed up terminal tackle as well. Heavy duty steel leaders and strong circle hooks are a must. If you can’t tie your own steel, pre-made rigs are available. Don’t buy some dollar store rig though, make sure you get something from a solid tackle shop and they’ll have good pre-made rigs. Other top of the food chain predators have been cooperative as well! Jewfish and barracudas have kept rods doubled over!
For eating fish, we’ve been getting some great tripletail and cobia. It has been years since I have seen this many big triples around this early in the season. The cobia have also been actively taking baits. We have been catching quite a few, but most are still a little undersized. Remember, they changed the slot on cobia a few years ago from 34” to 36” to the fork. That doesn’t sound like a big jump, but I have thrown back quite a few 34-35 inchers so far this season. There are also some stud gags around. This past month we have caught some big ones, and even though their season is closed, it is still fun to fight the brutes! On a side note, an encouraging thing so far this season is the amount of juvenile (8-15 inch) gag/red grouper that we have been catching inside of 15 miles. Florida has not solved the Lake O discharge issue and has continued to exacerbate our red tide problem. Hurricanes also add to the red tide fuel, and its typical to always have a red tide following a hurricane, however, this year, without a hurricane or major discharges, we went through the first time in years without a red tide. All of the small grouper we’re catching survived last year’s spawn and weren’t wiped out like every year in the red tide wave. If we can keep this progress up, we’re going to have a great grouper fishery in a few years!
The bite has been great, and as we continue into winter we can just expect it to continue! If you’d like to book your own trip with us, give us a ring at (239)285-7710. Tight lines!