Summer Fishing Update

I’ve had some awesome trips so far this summer! I don’t know which is hotter, the weather, or the fishing. I haven’t been fishing the intracoastal near as much as the inlet, out off the beach, and a little bit of offshore too. The inlet has either been red hot or dead. Last week I could easily go through 150 shrimp in a couple hours. This week it’s like you get one or two nice fish if you’re lucky. There’s a pile of mangrove snapper out there and I have limited out with 15 to 20 fish some days in an hour with some decent ones for inshore up to 15 inches or so.

I’ve been doing best about halfway through the incoming tide. There’s been a bunch of big snook out there and some nice upper slot and over slot reds. I’ve been trying to keep a live croaker, pinfish, or pigfish in the water for them. There’s a bunch of tarpon hanging around the inlet and I’ve seen some good schools of them north of the inlet right up against the beach. I personally like targeting them up against the shoreline more than around the inlet, being that they don’t get pressured as much. I like using a 6-to-8-inch live croaker if possible and 8-to-12-inch live sand trout or weakfish work great too if you can get your hands on them. Pretty easy to catch them this time of year just using small shrimp or half of a shrimp, especially around the nearshore artificial reef sites. We’ve been doing awesome with flounder but not a ton of big fish being caught. We’ve caught a few 5-to-6-pound fish but a lot of them have been in the 1-to-2-pound range which is still a decent fish.

Before you know it, we’re going to be working our way into the fall mullet run, which usually starts about mid-August. Last year was awesome and I highly recommend setting up a charter during this time! Call me to set up a trip!