Near Shore Fishing Report
Water temps have quickly returned to warmer upper ranges. Due to this, we are seeing the near shore action better as you get deeper towards the upper end of the near shore range. Fishing around 60-80ft or more is best to find cooperative lane snapper, a few mangroves and the occasional keeper red grouper.
Lane snapper love live shrimp, but we find them on small chunk of threadfins and squid chunks too. Lanes are great eating fish and we have been finding areas holding more than others. Keep sticking and moving till you find the depth and area holding more cooperative lane snapper closer to the 70-80ft or more depth range.
Mangrove snapper are super thick inshore around good structures, while near shore they seem to be more concentrated deeper around that 80-100ft area. Using small chunks of cut threadfin on the double snell rig is best around 30lb leader and 3-4ot hooks.
Red grouper are possible fishing deepest near shore but you have to sort through a lot of the 16-19 inch fish to find a couple keepers that are 20 inches or more to harvest. Using bigger baits like squid strips, bonita strips or larger live baits is best to find the bigger keeper sized grouper. Like the lanes, it takes some hunting around to find concentrations of nice keeper sized fish.
Offshore Fishing Report
We are staying after the red snapper offshore in that 140-160ft range and beyond. They are open for us continuously through end of day October 25th and we have tons of trips with lighter loads around august and October, while the September trips are selling out due to the overlap with the gag grouper being open for only the month of September. Fishing for red snapper remains steady with the big ones being caught on bigger baits like the threadfin squid combo or the bonita chunks or the bigger live baits. Things like big boston mackerel are good options too. Anything large and oily will work well to attract these aggressive feeders.
Red grouper have remained steady for us offshore with good numbers being harvested on our 12 hour extreme trips, 39 hour trips and the long range private fishing charters on our go fast charter fleet. Big live baits and dead baits are key much like targeting the bigger red snapper.
Scamp grouper have been most common the medium sized live pinfish and the moderate tackle like the 60lb leaders and the 6-7ot hooks. We do see them from time to time while targeting mangrove snapper with cut threadfin too.
Triggerfish are open once again and were seeing some nice ones caught on our deeper water adventures aboard our private fishing charters or the long range party boat fishing trips too. They like the smaller strips of chewy baits like the bonita strips, squid strips or smaller octopus tentacles.
Yellowtail snapper have been coming up on live shrimp or squid chunks and sometimes smaller chunks of threadfin. We see them primarily through the night time fishing but occasionally we can pull them during the day too.
Pelagic action has been stellar lately with bountiful blackfin tuna coming up on the trollers, flat lines and so thick sometimes we catch them dropping down or reeling up live pinfish.
We have caught a few big bull mahi mahi or dolphin while flat line fishing or pitch bait fishing while on our long range 12 hour extreme trips, deep water private fishing charters or the 39 hour long range overnight fishing trip!
Wahoo are possible too and a few nice ones caught lately while trolling. We have some new wahoo killer trolling lures in our shop from line sided tackle and were hoping that helps us to catch even more of these good eating wahoo while offshore fishing.