Had an awesome day fishing Melbourne Beach on Friday with the Glass Family, who were visiting from Michigan. We got out early and it was a hazy start to the day. There was a rocket launch originally scheduled around 5:20am, but it got pushed back to just around 7. At just about that time, I was hauling gear across the street when a fiery glow appeared to the north through the hazy morning fog. I quickly juggled some things around so I could free a hand to capture on film the Falcon 9’s glorious ascent through the atmosphere. I’ve seen a thousand rocket launches in my life, and it still took all of 8 seconds to realize I was recording a street light. About 10 minutes later, I heard the rocket’s boosters blasting, but with no visibility.

Anyhow, once we got setup, the action started quickly and never really stopped. Water temps registered at 72F and low tide was about 10am. We had an assortment of baits — cut whiting, cut bonito, frozen shrimp, live fleas… Didn’t catch any trophies, but around a dozen croakers, 4 whiting, a few jacks, and the catch that made the day — A SHARK! Caleb and Maddy had their hopes set on landing a shark, and once again, the surf delivered: despite its small stature, the bonnethead is always a big crowd pleaser. Around 12pm there was some type of feeding frenzy going on a few hundred yards off the beach, not too many fins or jumping, but you could visibly see a red slick with action swirling in and around it for a good 5 minutes. Unfortunately, we tried, but did not do a good job picking that up on film. We saw some dolphins about an hour later, too. The next day a neighbor said they saw some right whales pass by the same area. You never know what you might see on the beach!

Hey gang, it’s been an interesting few weeks as you all know with the weather the way it has been. Now that we’ve turned the corner on winter and we’re heading solidly into our spring season, you can expect the winds to pick up for the next 4 to 6-weeks. This will make getting off the beaches a little more difficult than we would like.

On the days that we do have the ability to get out there, I’ll be looking for a variety of springtime species. The three main species I’ll be targeting are tripletail, cobia, and snook on my near-coastal excursions. If you have a group that you would like to get involved with chasing these species, you can reserve your trip right on my website reservation page. I am also going to be starting a new program where I will be putting 2 to 3-anglers together on a “shared expense” fishing trip to chase these and other species. Most of this action is going to occur within about 10-miles of the beaches, depending on water temperature, water clarity, and location of bait pods along the near-coastal waters. If you are interested in signing up for one of these 5 or 8-hour shared expense fishing trips please email me at captjimross@cfl.rr.com and let me know. I’ll put you in a special group that I’ll email on those days that I can make this happen. Although the spring break time is a very busy time for me here on the Space Coast, that doesn’t mean that I can’t fit you in. If I have a day on my reservation page that looks like it is already booked, please give me a call at 321-636-3728. If I don’t answer, please leave a message and I’ll see what I can do to squeeze you in on your preferred day of the week.

Now let’s talk about the fishing…

Redfish, speckled trout and black drum action will continue to be good in the Mosquito Lagoon and both rivers. We should be able to catch them on artificial, cut bait, and live baits. So, give me a call or go to the website to book your trip today and we’ll get out there and catch your next memory.

We only got offshore a couple of times last week, but we were able to put our customers on some fun fishing and good eats. Kingfish were willing to play on the troll and targeting the bottom, we ended up with some really nice lane snapper and triggerfish. That’s a fine day of fishing and some good fish to bring home for dinner.

Armando with his first “keeper” snook (31″) at the Jetty.

Good morning all you Sebastian Inlet friends and family! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! Here we go with the first report for March. For the most part fishing remains kind of slow, but there are fish around that are willing to play, you just need to be there when they do! The water has dropped back down to 66-67 this past week, and through the weekend, but it stayed pretty clean on the north side until Sunday when it silted up a bit, the south side cleaned up a lot over what it was last week. So here we go with your action spots.

North Jetty

Out here most of the action again has been at the jetty tip, both tides with the incoming being the better tide. Early in the morning there have been some nice black drum caught on live and dead shrimp on the incoming tide, also some snook being caught on live shrimp and pinfish, most were too big to keep, but a couple slots were caught as well. Some redfish were being caught as well, but are catch and release only, same live baits. In between the pilings, and over the rock pile at the tip, either tide there has been some really nice sheepshead being caught on live fleas and fiddler crabs. The beach side of the jetty has been pretty slow due to the massive sandbar that is there now, making the water too shallow for the fish to want to come in, but I did see some small whiting caught on Sunday, dead shrimp. The out going tide at the SE tip is all about the blues and jacks, they are biting just about anything you toss out there. Along the wall between the bait shop and the bridge they have been catching some catch and release redfish on baits and jigs fished near the channel. Both tides. Up by the bridge I saw some nice sheepshead caught. Fleas and fiddlers for bait.

South Jetty

Over here the water finally cleaned up enough to spark a decent bite, blues, jacks on spoons and cut bait, some black drum and sheepshead on dead shrimp, outgoing tide at the tip, either tide. The high tide along the wall and the beach pocket area has been producing some small snook, couple keepers, some nice seatrout, and a couple keeper flounder. Live shrimp and finger mullet are the key baits. Also along the wall on the incoming tide there were some nice drum and sheepshead being caught on live and dead shrimp.

T-Dock Area

Back here the fishing has been pretty slow, about the only thing I saw being caught were some under sized black drum, a few small whiting, some sheepshead around the dock pilings, and the rocks. For those tossing silver spoons to the channel there are some blues, jacks, and small spanish mackerel to be had. Either tide, but outgoing is better. Not much else back here.

Surf Area, both sides

For the most part the surf has been a little washed out due to the NNE winds, and the morning low tides making the fishing a bit tough because you have to throw farther out to get to them, plus the 3 ft seas dirtying up the water on both sides. Small sharks, catfish and stingrays are the species being caught mostly, but there has been some whiting and a couple pompano around. Not a whole lot going on.

Well that’s all I have for this week for you guys. After Monday the seas and the winds are supposed to kick back up, 3-5 ft, and winds NNE 15-20. So if you do get out, be prepared for some rough conditions. Have a great week!! And reminder, next Sunday the 8th we “spring forward” with the clocks! Snookman.

Brett Mike and Jack had a good day of pompano fishing with some trout, jacks and plenty of bluefish in the mix as well

Great week of inshore and nearshore fishing. Pompano were on fire inshore right after the last cold front with one of the best bites I’ve seen in several years. Trout bite has still been good and there are plenty of bluefish and jacks around as well. The big schools of big black drum are spotty, but we found them a day or two. Nearshore has been decent even with the dredge pumping the silt out to the beaches. Plenty of jacks, bluefish, and mackerel with some pompano mixed in. There’s also been plenty of sheepshead and margate on the reefs with some lane snapper and juvenile muttons. Weakfish nearshore have been good as well with some larger weakfish this year from years past.

This week the wind will keep us inshore and we will still be focusing on pompano, trout and see how the snook are eating as the cold fronts have slowed that bite tremendously. Should improve over the next few weeks with warmer temps and the spring bait starting to get into the lagoon more consistently.

The fishing just north of Brevard County has really been ramping up this past week. The cooler temperatures have seemed to have left and the fish are happy. Looking at the extended forecast there is a lot of chamber of commerce days ahead this week and these fish are moving into their Spring time patterns. The bait pods have started to move up on the shallows of Mosquito Lagoon and the fish have followed. The trout, redfish and black drum have all been found roaming the flats and backwaters looking to chew.

Further north into the Daytona Beach area the oyster beds have been thriving with life from trout and redfish to the occasional flounder. They have been receptive to both live bait and artificials making for a great time on the water.

We finally got some decent reports of fish being caught off the beach this past week. Although many of the notable catches were closer to Sebastian, there were still a few solid reports in the Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach areas.

Most of the good bites have been on the backside of dead low tide, with only about an hour window or so to capitalize. Casting farther out has been a necessity due to how low the tide has been. There have been plenty of whiting and black drum running up and down the beaches, with a few decent pompano mixed in. And I’m sure everyone who fished knows, those little sharks have been everywhere!

The bait of choice has been frozen Blue Magic shrimp and live sand fleas, rigged on a pompano rig with a sputnik weight. The color of the pompano floats hasn’t seemed to matter much lately, so pick whichever one looks appealing to you. Just make sure the shrimp are peeled and about thumbnail size before putting them on the hook.

Stay tuned to our social media, we’ll be announcing a surf rod and reel giveaway in the coming days!

As always, tight lines!

I don’t want to jinx us by saying winter is finally over and spring is in the air but I am. Our area waters can finally get some much-needed warmer water for the fish to start feeding aggressively. We have a full moon as this report goes live and I’m sure the bass will be heading to shallower waters to spawn. March should be a great time to fish. There is also something that comes with the weather change this part of the year and that is wind. This will make some days challenging for boaters. My plan this week is to fish Headwaters and Garcia so I hope that my report will be a catching report. Put away the heavy coats and slide into your favorite shorts and go fishing!

WHAT WOULD YOU DO if you made a basic inquiry about an item for sale on Facebook marketplace, and the seller, a random stranger on the internet, asked you to go fishing with them? Mike Clifford didn't flinch when presented with this scenario last Friday… He took home dinner AND a new beach fishing cart!

It’s me — the random internet stranger that did the awkward thing. I had just moved to Melbourne Beach a few months back and I’ve been living the dream with such convenient access to the beach, but the private access is very narrow and with a low hanging canopy — it is not at all accommodating for a full-size angler mate fishing cart loaded with surf rods, so I made the difficult decision to list the cart for sale on Facebook Marketplace. I quickly got an inquiry from a guy who said he was going to be fishing in the area and might come by after to take a look.

“Hey, come take a look at it and I’ll go fishing with you,” just naturally printed itself onto the screen for me.

It took all of zero seconds for the fear to set in that I scared off a potential buyer by being such an outwardly forward creep, but before my girlfriend could give me an official point of reference as to where I landed on the scale of weird, my phone dinged.

Holy sh*t, he said yes!

A total Zales moment.

Mike showed up just before 8 in the morning on Friday, just as promised. We learned that we both tried unsuccessfully to acquire clams that from various nearby bait shops. ARE YOU ANYWHERE OUT THERE, CLAM GUY? Any way, Mike liked the cart enough to close the deal, and then we were off to the beach.

The water temp was 71F and we got out there just before peak high tide around 8:30am. It was a beautiful day and the new moon was at perigee, so we had big time volume of water movement, cleanish not too cold water, and a light SW/E wind. I had high expectations for production and was pretty content with the result. The fish were there and biting. I immediately caught a tiny whiting — so small I’d of thrown back 99/100 times — but between the timing and the fact that I was dead set on fish for dinner, he went to the ice. My woman and I ended up bringing home 8 or 9 fish, all croaker and whiting, most of them underwhelming in size. We also threw back several undersized black drum. But it was my new fishy friend Mike’s big day to be had. Once he got settled with lines in the water and stogey under fire, he got to business, which included landing the catch of the day — the elusive Florida pompano. Not a monster but a beautiful specimen at a little over 12″ and a perfect meal for two. He also generously donated us a few whiting, too. We were mostly fishing a combo of blanched and live fleas and Fishbites — but the pompano was hooked on good old tried and true frozen peeled shrimp.

Mike — it was great fishing with you, buddy. Let’s definitely do it again sometime!

As for everybody else, take a stranger fishing sometime and you’re probably going to leave with a friend!

I was able to get out one night this week with snook squarely in my crosshairs.

The evening started a little slow. I picked off a couple of small trout early, and then things went quiet for a while. Just as the tide was nearing the turn, a short feeding window opened that lasted about 20 minutes. During that brief stretch, the bigger snook finally started chewing. I had three eat, landed two solid fish, and lost a third.

As quickly as it started, it ended. Once that window closed, the bite completely shut down, and that was it for the night.

That’s winter fishing in a nutshell. It’s a game of patience. You never know exactly when they’re going to flip the switch, but when they do, you need to be there. Persistence is everything this time of year. The anglers willing to wait out the slow stretches are the ones who get rewarded when those larger fish decide to commit.

We have another mild cold front moving through right now, but I do not expect it to have much impact. We had consistent warmth leading up to it, so water temperatures should remain fairly stable. As long as that holds, I expect fishing to stay productive in the days ahead.

62° water temps at blast off this morning and the bite has been steady. With a cold front pushing in over the next few days, expect the artificial bite to tighten up a bit — but the live bait bite is improving daily as these prespawn fish stage up.

We’re starting to see more females getting heavy… it’s that time. 👀

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