Good morning all my Sebastian Inlet friends and family! I hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving with friends and family! So here’s this weeks update on the fishing at the inlet. Last week the fishing was pretty dang good with the cooler water temperatures, 72, and the fact that it had cleaned up quite a bit and the fish were on a roll so to speak.
The hotspot was the NE tip of the north jetty, but only the lucky boaters could fish that area, luck dogs. But it’s all good because the south side was producing fish as well. The boats, some of them who were fishing with live shrimp and not just live pins, pigs, and croakers were catching quite a few really nice black drum, sheepshead, pompano, redfish and a lot of small snook, mostly undersized because when the water cools down the juveniles love to come out to play! That all ended on Friday afternoon when the seas and the NNE winds decided to pick up and make it too rough to fish there anymore. The south jetty was pretty good all week as well, up until Friday afternoon when it all went away with the winds and seas picking up. Both tides they were catching some black drum, sheepshead, pompano, and even some small bluefish. Sand fleas and either live or dead shrimp worked for everything. A couple of the guys were using the small goofy jigs to catch the pompano, beachside. The incoming tide along the rock shoreline was producing black drum, sheepshead and black margates on cut shrimp. Some snook were around, but they were mostly the smaller fun ones. Any live bait will entice them, and smaller swimbaits. The water temperature of the water along our coast has now dropped down to 69 degrees with the north winds we have been seeing. This in turn will make our cool water species want to bite, if the water cleans back up.
Flounder season just opened up December the first, so they should be showing, there have been a small number of them caught last month, but they were small, and closed. The limit for them is 14 inch minimum with a bag limit of 5 per person per day. Live shrimp, small finger mullet and mud minnows are the preferred baits, but they can be caught on small artificials too. Anywhere along the shoreline you can find them, incoming tide is the best, and at the tide change periods either tide. Another species that usually show up this time of year when the water gets this cold and cleans up is the spotted seatrout, but they are still closed until January the first. The stats for these fish in our area are, 2 per person per day, 15 inch minimum, 19 inch maximum, and one of those two fish can be over the 19 inch maximum, but you can only keep two fish. The south side is usually where a lot of them hang out. Live shrimp is the best bait for them, but they do gat caught by the anglers fishing with mud minnows and small finger mullet. Also, the smaller artificials work well with them. I did hear that there are a lot of them in the intercoastal, back side of the inlet, along with some pompano.
The T-Dock area has been a hit or miss deal with the fish, some days there are some spanish mackerel back there on small white jigs, and also there have been reports of some of the black drum and sheepshead being caught on live and dead shrimp. Not much action on the snook back here, except for the nigh timers tossing flair jigs, they are catching a few, but most are too big to keep. The surf is a blown out mess again!!
So that’s all I have for now my friends. This week is going to be a little brutal with the stiff winds all week, and the kicked up waves , and the cold weather. It should start laying back down and warming up some by Thursday, so we shall see how that goes. I hope everyone has a wonderful week!
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