Near-shore action remains strong out of Sebastian and Port Canaveral this week. We’ve been catching really good numbers of tripletail that are averaging 8 to 15 pounds. These are my favorite size to eat. The larger fish (and we’ve had some into the low 20-pound range) just don’t taste as good even though they are very impressive to show in photos. These fish should remain around for another few months so if you like to eat fish, now is your time to get out there or give me a call and we’ll go target them together.

The surprise of this winter for me has been the numbers of nice sized speckled trout along the beaches. I have my anglers landing them with jigs or live shrimp on an Assassin Boodah style jig head. Some of the trout are running into the low 20-inch range, but most of them are averaging 15 to 17-inches. I’ve been using a lot of the Rapala Crush City Salty Ned Rolls or the Ned BLT lures because of all of the bluefish that are also working the surf break right now. These are made with the elas-tec material which is highly resilient and super stretchy to combat the teeth on those blues.

Pompano are another species that have been showing up fairly regularly along the surf. Goofy style jigs in pink, orange, or chartreuse have been working best for them. On most days we catch at least two or three and on a good trip we’ll get about a dozen. The weather is going to start to deteriorate over the next week so I’ll probably be inside the lagoon rather than out here, so I’ll have a good report on how they are fishing for you in next week’s edition of Spacefish.

I do have a few days each week to get anglers out on the water, so if you’re interested please hit me up and we’ll put something together that works for you.