Fishing Report
Sheepshead are super active right now around the region. We are seeing them stack up around docks, piers, bridges, jetties and more. Virtually any hard structure with any growth will attract hordes of hungry, aggressive, and concentrated sheepshead action. They love the small crabs, sandfleas, or small pieces of shrimp. Using light leader, smaller hooks and minimal weight is keey for these small mouthed hard fighting, but great eating sheepshead. They also have a very strong tough mouth so you have to be ready to really set the hook on some decently stiff hooks. You don’t want 4x strong, but you don’t want the light wire mosquito hooks either when targeting the sheepshead.
Redfish action is active around the area, but mostly in the back bay areas. We are seeing lots of them around the back bay islands of the pass, around the mangrove shorelines of the VA memorial park, and around the back bayou areas too and up into the narrows and throughout boca Ceiga bay. We are finding most anglers having success using soft plastics, but cut dead bait still working well, and also live white bait. Its that time of year that the redfish are busting just about everything and even following the surface lures in low light conditions in the morning and dusk periods.
Mackerel are chasing the faster flashy lures, live white bait and even crushing fast moving soft plastics. They are super prolific around the area right now and more and more seem to be showing up in the deeper water areas where the water is moving and bait is present. We see the majority around the passes, bridges, jetties and deeper grass flats. They love chasing bait schools and concentrating bait around the structures or shorelines to hammer what they can.
Trout action is heating up nicely as waters cool. We are seeing a lot of these guys around the bay bay waters between the flats, bars, and shorelines. They love to hang around the dock lights and bridge lights at night and that should improve as we move towards that new moon coming up. The trout get larger and a bit more aggressive as the waters cool and we see those pockets of larger 20+ inch trout this time of year more commonly. They move more shallow as the water cools typically, but always hang where they can ambush passing baits most easily.
Triple tail are stacked up in our area lately around those crab trap buoys along our shorelines, bridges, and channels. We are seeing them on markers and floating debris too. They love to attack any shrimp, white bait or soft plastics that get tossed their way while they hide under or around their piling or floating buoy or debris.
Snook action is going well lately as that water warmed up ahead of this recent front we saw the snook action move all around and really heat up with the water temps. They even came out on the beach a bit and we saw some feeding around the passes too. However, most stayed in the back still but we definitely see these guys vacillate back and forth from the back and upper bay areas back to the passes as the water warms between fronts with the bait supply.
Flounder action is going really well, but they are closed due to their spawning protections. They will re open December first and you will once again be able to target and harvest these good eating unique species. They love live shrimp, smaller creek chubs, and white bait near or on the bottom. However, they will hit soft plastics all day if you have enough patience to get them slowed down enough to get on or just above the bottom.
Tarpon action persists around the area, but its that time of year that most of these fish have seen a few things so you have to be on your game to get them to eat. Also, we are seeing a majority of these fish back up in the bay tucked back from the cooler gulf waters, only coming out with the big tides to feed.
Nearshore Fishing Report
The hogfish bite is hot right now on a variety of trips, but we are doing best on our private fishing charters aboard the HUB and Flying HUB 2 and our ten hour all day trips. The five hour half day trip gives you a shot for the hogfish, but we see more on the ten hour all day because we have more time to target them and most of the time more advanced anglers using the live shrimp and the right hogfish tackle to target them too. We have some great videos on our fishing tips and tricks page here to show you how to target and rig for the hogfish -> https://www.hubbardsmarina.com/fishing-tips/
The lane snapper are coming up all over the place too, we are seeing a lot of the lane snapper while targeting the hogfish on our near shore ten hour all days and five hour half days and finding plenty on our private fishing charters too. We see them using the shrimp, squid and cut threadfin using smaller hooks like 3-4ot and that 30lb test leader.
Mangrove snapper are biting well too near shore, while we don’t get them as big as we do offshore and the numbers are a bit lower we are seeing surprising numbers of the mangroves in some decent sizes. It’s a great time to use that smaller chunk of threadfin like two inches long and about a half to three quarter inch tall cut piece of threadfin for targeting the near shore mangroves on double snelled three to four ot hooks and around 30lb leader. You can get them on the shrimp too, but the double snell with a chunk of threadfin is best.
Mackerel action is thick near shore, but we aren’t seeing the kingfish like we should for the time of year and the water temps. However, it shouldn’t be too long before we should be seeing a big concentration of kingfish swarm our area. They come up while trolling, flat line fishing and sometimes even jig fishing too.
Offshore Fishing Report
We are focused offshore on a variety of species like triggerfish, scamp grouper, strawberry grouper, mangrove snapper, vermillion snapper, yellowtail snapper, mutton snapper, almaco jacks, porgies, and many more! We are even seeing some pelagics like tuna, kingfish, mahi and you have a chance for some wahoo too. Its that time of year where you don’t know what you are going to catch. This last 39 hour had huge mutton snapper, African pompano and a nice cubera snapper too!
The mangrove snapper action is where I would focus fishing that cut threadfin chunk about 4 inches by about an inch and a half tall with double snelled 5-6ot hooks and around a 40lb leader. You could get a little heavier, or a little lighter, but we are definitely fishing on the lighter side of things due the bigger gag grouper being closed up at this time.
