snook

This week brought a mix of productive early mornings and solid evening trips, and both timeframes definitely had their moments. There’s been plenty of activity across the lagoon lately, with large amounts of bait showing up along mangroves, flats, spoil islands, and docks. Large schools of pogies have also been moving through deeper water and getting pushed to the surface at times.

Most of my success this week came around mangroves early, then transitioning over to docks later in the morning once the sun got higher. The bite has been fairly consistent with a good variety of species in the mix including snook, trout, redfish, tarpon, jacks, and plenty of ladyfish.

One of the biggest keys right now is matching the hatch as closely as possible. I’ve been seeing a lot of smaller baitfish, especially greenbacks, and 3 to 4-inch paddle tails have been producing well because of it. I experimented with larger paddle tails after seeing some bigger mullet cruising the mangroves, but the smaller profiles consistently out fished them, so I switched back and stayed with what was working.

The topwater bite has also been pretty solid lately, especially during lower light periods around active bait. I’ve also been seeing quite a bit of sargassum showing up throughout the river lately, so plan accordingly when choosing where and how you want to fish.

Overall, there’s a good amount of life throughout the system right now, and if you can locate bait and moving water, you’ve got a good chance at finding feeding fish.