Hubbard's Marina | Deep Sea Fishing | Dolphin Watching Tours | John's Pass Madeira Beach FL
Hogfish action is now in full swing near shore, and we are seeing some monster hogfish action around 40-70ft of water near shore right now on live shrimp. Exciting time to get out there and target some of these great eating fish with lighter tackle, lighter lead and about a 3-4ot hook with around 30lb braid and 30lb floro top shot.
Gag grouper is the king of the offshore report right now. Many anglers in our area are seeing the same thing on longer runs beyond 30-50 miles offshore. Big live baits, big tackle and timing your trips around the weather is key.
Mangrove snapper are biting well out deep in about 120ft of water where we are seeing a steady mangrove snapper bite. They are really loving the threadfin plugs and double snell rig. This will help you catch more mangrove snapper with their quick bites and tendency to steal the bait.
The pelagic action offshore is crazy right now in the past week we have seen tuna, kingfish, wahoo and caught two sailfish! One sailfish was released alive while the second was nearly done and was harvested.
We are catching some nice big Red Snapper using cut threadfins but the Bonita strips remain to be the best bait we can use to target the bigger red snapper as you can cut yourself a big strip!
Mackerel are thick near shore in areas of clean water where bait is present. We did have huge areas of bait and mackerel nearly on the beaches prior to the recent red tide bloom that is sitting off our coast.
Gag grouper action is a little sporadic but you can find them on those ledges, peaks and structures out deeper past 140ft of water it seems. Plus, we are seeing some nice scamp grouper mixed in with them too. Live bait is tough to get out there with the red tide around inshore, but we are using some of the baits we catch near shore and offshore for gags with great success like the white grunts, porgies that aren’t in the FMP and others too.
Snook fishing has been good around the area lately, but you really got to time your trips around the tide and try to capitalize on that sunrise or sundown or nighttime action. We are having the most luck around the area using the soft plastic white paddle tails, imitation shrimp lures, or the early morning or low light conditions the surface lures work well too!
We had a killer bite of red grouper early to middle of this past week prior to the little weather disturbance we have had. They were biting extremely well for us right ahead of that low approaching the area.
Gag grouper action is very tough near shore right now overall unless you’re up in the bay around the shipping channel or passing near shore waters to head out deeper.
