You never know what you’ll catch while fishing the mangroves. This juvenile Goliath grouper ate a Z-man four inch DieZel MinnowZ!
Mullet, mullet (almost) everywhere both north and south of town! If you’ll look closely you’ll see black mullet already round bodied with roe beginning to group-up. You should also notice lots of large schools of silver mullet in the six to eight inch range from the deeper flats to the shorelines. Finally, there are still a fair number of fingerling silvers holding close to structures like docks and mangroves.
As you might expect, predatory species like snook, trout, tarpon, jacks, snapper, redfish and grouper (Goliath) are feeding on them, at least sporadically. A cast net and a little patience should result in plenty of free bait!
If you’re like me and prefer to toss lures, throwing Z-Man DieZel Minnowz and Scented Jerk Shadz in four and five inch lengths will reward you with bent rods. Pearl (white) has been working quite well for me and mullet-like colors are also producing decent fish. Topwater walking plugs are bringing a few vicious strikes and even more misses. The new HellraiZor from Z-man offers an easy to achieve waking action by simply casting and reeling; no rod-tip action necessary. The jacks are sure liking them and I expect the trout and snook will too.
There’s talk of large pompano in the surf well north of the Fort and scattered pompano between us and Stuart. So far I personally have not skipped any in the Indian River. I hope and expect to see them soon as I love targeting them through the winter season!
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