Snook action is crazy thick around the pass right now, and only getting better and better. Also, with the new moon that nighttime and early morning snook bite should heat up even more when fishing the johns pass bridge or docks of the pass. Time your trips to target the start of the outbound or end of the incoming for great opportunities. During the day, we are still seeing these guys being caught but they are down on the bottom hanging around the structures like docks and bridges. They are also very active around the mangrove islands, flats, and points leading to the pass. Snook are super smart and opportunistic feeders. They are going to try to expel the least amount of energy possible while trying to eat as much as possible. Look for areas they can sit and wait in the lee of the current and only just pop out to tackle passing baits. We are seeing them targeting the bigger baits right now like flair hawk lures, big live shrimp, small silver mullet, and even pass crabs.

Redfish opportunities are increasing around the pass with warmer water and air temps they are looking for deeper cooler water that will hold more dissolved oxygen and our Johns pass area provides them exactly what they are looking for. Also, those cuts between the islands of the pass are good areas too. You can soak some cut threadfins, ladyfish, or mullet for a chance at a big redfish around those areas. Also, the slow-moving swim baits or soft plastics on the bottom are good options right now too. We are seeing some redfish around the jetties and on the beach but not as many as we do during their spawning peaks.

Trout action is possible around the bridge and jetties and on the beaches right now around the pass. Mostly during the early part of the day or around dusk. At night, they are thick around dock lights, bridge light and areas that concentrate the white bait or passing shrimp.

Pompano are still out on the beaches and around the bridge and jetties. However, they are moving around quite a bit and one day you will see a bunch caught the next day you won’t see them. It’s a little tricky to nail them down but the start of the day is a good time to target them before people get out on the beaches. Working the troughs with pompano jigs or soaking live shrimp on the bottom are great ways to target the pompano.

Tarpon action is thick around the area, but especially around the bridge at night and during the day around the beaches. We are seeing quite a few nice ones in these areas, but the smaller ones are active at night around some dock lights and back bay bridges. These smaller tarpon are super acrobatic and fun to catch on lighter tackle.

Mangrove snapper are super thick around the inshore area structures like docks, piers, bridges, seawalls, and rock piles. We are seeing clouds of these aggressive fish around the dock and johns Pass bridge lately. Little bit of chum on the end of a tide will get them actively feeding through the end of that slack tide. Using super light tackle and smaller hooks with a small piece of shrimp or white bait is a great way to target the fun to catch and quite biting inshore mangrove snapper.

Hogfish action has been slower overall, but we haven’t really targeted them due to their spawn. Now that they are on the tail end of their spawn, we are going to try to really target them this coming week Tuesday on the ten hour all day prior to that new moon to see if they are back concentrated in that 40-70ft area we really found them well prior to their spawn. We are still catching a few here and there on our five-hour half day and a few on the ten hour all day. However, we are hoping to be able to find more of a concentration a little shallower than we have been fishing on our ten hour all day. They love those live shrimp and around 30lb leader and 3-4ot hooks and around 1-2oz leads.

Red grouper action near shore has been steady but its pretty picky and not super-hot inside the near shore areas inside 100ft of water. We are seeing some nice ones, but most are just under keeper size. You must sort through quite a few of those shorter fish to find a good keeper sized red grouper. We are seeing them most often on larger dead baits, but the live pinfish works well too. The hot bait as of late has been a whole threadfin with a squid chunk.

Lane snapper have been going well near shore and we are seeing continuous streams of some fairly large sized lane snapper. They love a little bit of all the different baits, but the live shrimp and smaller cubes of squid seem to be working best. Lighter tackle options are also best too.

Vermillions are a little deeper around that 80-100ft area of the deepest near shore water. They are like the lanes and bite just about all the baits we use, but most often we use smaller cubes of squid to target the vermillion. They are large overall this time of year, and they get more concentrated. Once you get offshore, they are even larger!

Mangrove snapper action is steady near shore, but they get bigger and more common as we get deeper to that 100ft mark. We do see them shallow, all throughout the inshore and near shore waters and even offshore. Generally, they get more and more easily caught and get larger and larger the deeper you go. Near shore, we target them with that hogfish set up described above with a live shrimp or white bait.

Mahi mahi are starting to show up near shore, and we are seeing them as shallow as around 40ft of water up to the deepest near shore water. We typically will see them while bottom fishing, especially after sitting at a spot for awhile creating that chum line. I like to have a lighter spinning rod standing by with a gotcha plug around 7/8ths ounce or up to around 1oz. you can underhand cast it out as far as you can and let it sink a bit and retrieve it with your rod tip pointed straight down and rip it past the passing mahi and often you will catch one or even sometimes two! Trick is to work together and pick off as many as you like.

Red snapper fishing right now is white hot, and we are all out targeting and tackling plentiful red snapper on our long range private fishing charters aboard the Flying HUB 2. Plus, the 12-hour extreme split charter style trip and the 39-hour long range overnight deep sea fishing trip, and the 44 hour full moon overnight fishing trip are all really hammering some nice red snapper well offshore. We are seeing some really big red snapper in the 18-24lb range, and we are hoping to see some even bigger ones before the season concludes for us end of day august 18^th. The red snapper bite just about anything we send down when we are deep enough to get on them. They start around 130-150ft of water, but they get bigger as we get closer to 200ft of water. We are fishing as deep as around 250ft of water but mostly staying closer to around 150-200ft of water. They love the threadfin, live bait, cut bonita strips, whole squid, octopus, vertical jigs and a variety of baits. We typically use around 60-80lb leaders and around 6-8ot hooks depending on the size of the bait we are using.

Gag grouper fishing has been hot too and we are seeing them deep right now due to heat of the water. We are catching them using much larger live baits but also dead baits. A lot of big gags lately have been biting well on strips of the bonita, whole squid, and bigger threadfins with the tails cut. The trick is getting them landed once you get them to bite. That has been difficult unless you are using the appropriate tackle around 80lb leader minimum. However, around 100lb leader is best with around 7-12ot hooks depending on your bait size.

Big red grouper have been biting well out there too. These guys have really been targeting the dead bait, but we are getting some on the pinfish too. We have been seeing a good mix of nice gags, red grouper, and scamp too. Some trips getting nearly 20-30 or more of each species.

Scamp have been big lately and consistent since we are fishing deeper right now with the red snapper open. We are catching them on the smaller to medium pinfish, dead threadfins and some of the vertical jigs bounced along the bottom.

Mangrove snapper action has slowed a bit for us well offshore this past week, but we are hoping this new moon gets them more cooperative for us on this upcoming 39 hour today. The nighttime mangrove bite is typically very good, but the last two trips we have had a little softer night time mangrove bite.

Pelagic action was a little slow but the last two trips have seen more of the blackfin tuna and  some nice kingfish out deep once offshore. This new moon should hopefully continue that trend over the next week or so.