We are finally into our summer fishing season! With water temperatures becoming more stable and a huge influx of baitfish the action should be outstanding with a mixed bag of various fish species and feisty sharks on both the inshore and nearshore waters. Given the hotter afternoons I would generally recommend fishing the shallow waters during the lower light of the morning or evening hours and save mid day for deeper water bottom fishing.
Inshore:
The shallow water sight fishing will still be good as we move into summer but rather than fishing around the low tide we will be focusing more attention to the high tide redfishing. With good summer tides the reds will be able to push way back into the marsh up to the short grass flats where they can pick at fiddler crabs along the bottom. In many cases they will be feeding in such shallow water that we will be able to see the fishes tails popping out of the water as they feed (thus the name tailing redfish). This is a very exciting way to catch fish as we will be able to see the fish before ever making a cast which is great for light tackle and fly fishing enthusiasts! Outside of fishing for tailer’s we will have good shots at reds along the grass edges, oyster bars and creeks mouths. Along with reds also look to catch good numbers of speckled trout, flounder, jacks, ladyfish, bluefish and various sharks. I many cases, live or cut bait will take any of these species but working soft plastics or topwater lures along the edges will can be very productive as well! As a note: remember that the speckled trout are spawning during the summer so releasing the larger “row” trout ensures that we will have a great trout fishery for years to come.
Nearshore Wrecks: whiting, spanish, blues, shark, cobia
There is so much bait pouring into our area right now and behind the bait you can bet that there will be large gamefish and plenty of sharks to pull on. Along the beach and rips we will start to look for schools of bluefish and spanish mackerel as they crash the surface feeding on smaller baits. Moreover, there should still be a good number of cobia floating around on both the nearshore waters and on the offshore wrecks. If you are looking for some table food then placing shrimp on the bottom for whiting is the way to go; these fish don’t get very big but for what they lack in size they make up for as being excellent eating. And then there is the shark fishing! If you just want to pull on something big there will be plenty of sharks around to catch. We have 17 different shark species that average in size from 10-100 pounds plus a few monsters such as bull, tiger and hammer head that can push well over 500 pounds!