This past week has been a good one. Higher morning water levels with a strong outgoing tide has been great for fishing. Bait has been OK lately. There are still a lot of smaller bait around, but they are getting bigger. White bait has ranged from small to large so you get a wide variety of bait, but the pinfish have been producing the best. I have been chumming the smaller scaled sardines and threadfins and then placing a pinfish under the bushes. Pinfish sizes right now are perfect from the 2 to 4-inch range.
This past weekend we probably put close to 75 redfish in the boat. A lot of smaller slot fish, but I am glad to be seeing how many there are. That tells me in the next year or so we are going to have a lot of upper-slot, and over slot fish. October is one of the best months for redfish and I look forward to Fall fishing every year. Especially getting away from that summer heat.
With the higher water levels, we have caught a handful of nice trout. It has been a while since I have consistently caught trout on the shorelines I have been fishing. That’s a great sign of things to come. It’s nice to slam out in one area. Trout have ranged from 15 to 22-inches and most of them have been caught on white bait.
Snook have also been in the mix, but it wasn’t as good as I would have expected. Maybe because the redfish were beating them to the baits. I wasn’t seeing a lot of snook bust on chummers. I could hear them way back in the bushes however. They’re there just being a little tricky. We did catch a few slot snook and lost an absolute beast.
Like I have been saying, the redfish are the stars of the show right now. They are schooling up for their spawn and starting to tail on the flats when the water drops out. When the tide falls out, I tend to focus on the mullet activity. Where there’s mullet, there are redfish, and other predators. We did quickly get into a big school of jacks which was a lot of fun.
Fishing will be solid from now through November when we start to get cold fronts. The fishing will still be good when it gets cold, but we have to switch things up with the negative low tides we get through late fall and winter. Artificial fishing will also start to pick up a bunch. Trout and redfish will be the main target on artificial trips as well as some snook in the mix. Nothing like a big snook smacking a topwater plug.
If you are looking to go fishing, I would be honored to be your guide. Give me a call or text at 407-977-7650. You can also book on line through my website with no booking fees.
Fishing is fun!
Capt. Bucky Goldman of Bag’Em Fishing Charters. www.tampafloridafishingguide.com