Black drum fishing has been great throughout the area lately with big schools being found around local area bridges. Especially where some deeper moving water can be found. They love the crustaceans on the bottom like big shrimp or crabs. You can find the big schools with your bottom machine of these hungry and fun fighting fish. The more edible eating size drum are being found around the beaches, passes, and along the flats.

Triple tail are all over the buoys, floating debris and markers around the bay and entrance to the bay. All the way out the Egmont key channel you can find the triple tail on the buoys, markers and floating patches of grass being pushed out on the outgoing tide. Even when you can’t spot them on buoys or markers if you free line a shrimp down or use minimal weight to get the shrimp heading down the marker’s chain or line. We have even found some local dock lights that will hold triple tail, especially around the passes where water is moving.

Mangrove snapper are super thick around the area, we are seeing clouds of the mangrove snapper all over the docks, piers, bridges, jetties and more! While out fishing, if the tide slows down too much to target your large predatory fish, switch to chumming up the mangroves around structures. They make a great target while waiting for the tides to change. Check out this video from our TikTok channel to see just how prolific the mangrove snapper are around the pass right now -> https://www.tiktok.com/@hubbardsmarina/video/7133620012748754222

Snook fishing is going well around the passes, beaches, and flats right now. We are seeing big concentrations of the snook around the passes overnight and into the early morning, however, as soon as the sun rises it becomes more tricky to target them. We are able to get throughout the day, but the night bite seems to be extra aggressive. If you hit the solunars right during the day, you can find them around the docks and bridges of the passes. On the beaches they are cruising the troughs and you can sometimes find them and set up your bait ahead of them for a great sight fishing opportunity. Remember, on the beach they are super leader shy so lighten up to 15-20lb floro while sight fishing the beach.

Redfish action is going very well around the area! We are starting to get reports of some schooling fish around the flats, mangroves, and oyster bars. They are still found in good numbers tucked in the mangroves on those higher tides, but you can find good numbers concentrated on some area flats. Dock lines also producing well where you find that crustacean laden area.

Trout action is going steady around the area, not super-hot, but not terrible if you can find the pockets of fish. We are seeing some nice ones around the dock lights and bridge lights at night especially with all the bait concentrating around the lights. During the day, look for them on those deeper flats with the water remaining warm they are hanging deeper in those pockets, cuts, and potholes of the flats or finding the deeper water flats to hangout.

Mackerel have returned to many of the area fishing piers with good numbers of the mackerel chasing the plentiful bait around the area. We are finding them out the mouths of local passes and deeper flats around the mouth of the bay as well. Keep an eye out for diving birds and big showering bait schools that are giveaways to show where the mackerel are actively feeding.

The bite near shore was pretty steady for us on our 10 hour all day trips. We are seeing some nice lanes in good numbers closer to 100 or more and then plentiful vermillion around 100-200 of them plus some nice mangrove snapper mixed in there too. The red grouper have been tough in the near shore waters with lots of the short red grouper being very active and aggressive but we are able to catch some nice keepers here and there while near shore.

The half day trips are doing really well with plentiful grey snapper or white grunts, a good number of porgies, some black seabass, a few lanes and the occasional hogfish. We aren’t seeing any mackerel near shore but they are present along the beaches when the bait gets flushed out the bay on those hard out bound tides.

Hogfish action still pretty slow overall near shore, but they will slowly get better and better as the days shorten and rains help to cool the water a bit. Then once we get into the late September timeframe they really start to pick up more and more each week as they get back to higher concentrations.

We are doing really well offshore right now on the grouper, triggerfish, mangrove snapper, vermillion snapper, porgies, almacos, some yellowtail and more! Great time to get out there and capitalize on the good numbers of the red grouper we are seeing offshore in the deeper waters. Plus, we just added a BRAND NEW 39 hour trip for Tuesday august 23^rd that will have a SUPER light load if you want a chance with tons of one on one time with the crew, captain and plenty of railing space to spread out and hammer the red grouper, gag grouper, mangroves, triggerfish and more! Capt Garett has been hammering the fish and he’s pumped to have a light load trip coming up finally after a very long red snapper season!

The red grouper fishery is going to close end of day august 29^th so you should really get offshore ahead of that and take advantage of the solid fish we are seeing. They are loving the big dead baits like bonita strips, boston mackerel, octopus and squid strips. However, the bigger live pinfish work well for them too. Plus, the red grouper seem to love the jigs and we just got in a huge selection of these amazing octopus jigs that should be red grouper killers!

Gag grouper fishing is going well and should only get better through the end of the year as the waters cool and bring more gag grouper in shallower and shallower in higher concentrations. We are seeing a good number of big gags and some nearly 40lbs! They, like the red grouper, are biting well on the huge dead baits but the big live baits are working well for the gag grouper as well.

Scamp grouper are also cooperating well with the last trip hauling in a solid number of big scamp grouper on the average sized pinfish, slow pitch jigs and dead threadfin. We are seeing some quality scamp out there right now and expect them to remain constant through the coming weeks.

Mangrove snapper fishing is hot right now and we are seeing some really nice mangroves mixed in with high numbers of other smaller to average mangrove snapper too. They are thick offshore right now in good numbers biting well. Great time to use that threadfin chunk and the double snell rig to get you plenty of the mangrove snapper.