Fish Biting Throughout the Inlet

Good morning, Sebastian Inlet fishing junkies! Over the weekend, the water had cleaned up quite a bit, but remained cool at 81 degrees, which is a good temperature to improve the fishing action. Beginning on Friday and throughout the weekend, mullet arrived from the NE blow we had last week, but that does NOT mean the mullet run has begun, contrary to what some anglers claim. It’s too early in the season. October is generally the month for the mullet run.

While I was at the inlet during the weekend, I saw small schools of hand-sized mullet in the surf along with small finger mullet, too. There weren’t many, but enough to snag some throughout the day. Hopefully that is a good sign of things to come. The surf was up yesterday and even worse today, but it is expected to calm down as the week progresses, along with calmer winds. The water, as of this morning, was muddy again and will require a few days to clear up.

The fishing was decent over the weekend, but not as good as it could have been with all the mullet around. I’m not going to break down this report because fish were biting everywhere. Go to your favorite spot and fish it. Live shrimp and dead shrimp were the baits of choice on both sides. Quite a few small undersized mutton snappers were being caught everywhere, but no keepers. Keepers must be 18 inches. Plenty of mangrove snappers were caught as well, but again, most were at the 10-inch minimum to be kept. I did see a few in the 11 to 12-inch range caught along the north side rock wall and south jetty wall. Incoming tide and the beginning of the outgoing tide were the times to fish; Once the tide got going too hard, the snot weed showed up!

The south jetty incoming tide was the spot for snook. Live croakers and mojarra were the baits of choice. The north side was pretty slow for the snook, but a few were caught on the late evening high tide.

That’s it. As I said, there was plenty of bait around, but nothing feeding on them yet. We are still in the summer mode, so it will be like this until fall when it usually picks up. Again, get your favorite bait, hang out at your preferred fishing spot and see what turns up. Have a great week, everyone!