Where’s Our Winter…?

Although Florida is well known as a state where we are fortunate enough to be able to fish most of the year, our inland water ways do depend on cooler water temps at some point to complete the cycle. Most of the Indian and Banana Rivers are still fairly bad as far as dirty water either from ongoing algae blooms or from all the runoff occurring during our two recent hurricanes. Even on the fresh water side, the St Johns River is still at flood stages in some areas with warm water temps delaying our annual American Shad Run. As water temps drop and water levels lower this usually breaks the cycle of the inshore algae blooms.

The last few trips for me have included mostly throwing top water early in the morning to draw fish in then switching to shrimp and/or cut bait later in the day along mangrove shorelines. Sight fishing is mostly nonexistent with the current conditions except for very shallow shorelines with abundant sun light towards mid-day. Fortunately, this upcoming weekend is showing a decent cool down with lows in the 40’s and highs in the 60’s. Although a brief cool down, as is usually the norm for us, let’s hope the dropping water temps are enough to begin to clear things up. Even with the poor conditions the fish are still there. You just need to put in the time and effort to find them.