Hey everybody, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve submitted a report here on Spacefish. I’ve actually spent the last month down in Islamorada running charters down there with some of my regular customers. I do this each year for a little change of pace for the guys and gals that come out with me on a monthly basis to give them a little more variety in their fishing with me. It was a fantastic month with yellowtail snapper, mangrove snapper, mutton snapper, tarpon, black grouper, and permit being our main targets. The weather couldn’t have been better for us down there with calm seas and light breezes.

Here is a picture of Jim Ringround of Palm Bay with his buddy and two of the six permit they landed before we went to the reef and got 20 yellowtail snapper (two person limit) that day. Since I’ve been back here at home, we have had some very good fishing offshore, catching cobia, king mackerel, red snapper, various types of sharks, redfish, and snook on my near shore and just slightly offshore charter trips. I tried out a new bait from one of my sponsors, the flamingo flash 5 inch shadow assassin for the first time today and we got this 34 inch snook on the first bait we pulled out of the pack on the second cast we made with it.

Needless to say, I will be using this lure a whole lot more in the very near future. I don’t have any days available for June, but starting in July I’ve got a handful of days if anyone is interested in getting out to chase some fish with me. You can book your trip right on my website at www.finelinefishingcharters.com or give me a call at 321-636-3728 if you have any additional questions before booking your next fishing adventure.

I look forward to getting you out and helping you catch your next memory.

I squeezed in one day of fishing last week. Surprising to see water temperatures drop to the low 80’s but that won’t last long.

Stick Marsh has been good for me these past few outings but it all depends on the bait activity to make for a successful outing. At this time of year, picking a consistent spot on the lake will make or break a good day. Only if the bait is active will the bass be feeding aggressively for the first couple of hours before the sun gets higher in the sky. Pray for a little bit of cloud cover on the eastern horizon to make the bite last a little longer. My best lure so far for me is a bone color Yo Zuri 3DB Pencil that has a walking type pattern when retrieved. With the internal rattles it makes the bass go crazy to eat it. After the bait settled down, I switched to a suspending jerk bait for a few more fish. All in all I boated 23 fish and was back to the ramp by 10am.

Hey there everyone! It’s safe to say summer is here! The easterly breezes bring that clear water and the westerly off shore winds keep it nice and groomed most days. With that being said, this means we have to change up how we’re fishing the surf. Lighter leaders and smaller hooks are a great place to start when looking for whiting, croakers and the occasional pompano. We’ve been seeing catches of snook lately and I have been seeing the tarpon just out of reach so they are here, but we haven’t seen them close enough to fish for them from shore.

Small pieces of frozen shrimp and smaller fleas has been working well for us lately. Get out early fish the morning bite and find some shade because it’s hot out there! Have a great week everyone.

Summer has finally set in here on the Space Coast and the tarpon migration is definitely starting to heat up! Anglers can find these trophy fish all the way up and down the coast, inshore, along the beach, in ditches along salt marshes, saltwater ponds, the possibilities of where to catch these fish.

Florida is one of the few states that have these incredible species, being very acrobatic, long runs, and down right brutal fights to the very end these fish are a true prize. Tarpon are found inshore along deeper mangrove shorelines, saltwater estuaries off the main river, back bays, and even in residential canals that have little to no water flow. Even in some of the most stagnant water, you can find tarpon, and more so than other species. These fish are often seen rolling or to be technical coming up to gulp air to store in their swim bladder to breathe — they are one of the only fish that have this ability, it’s often why you’ll find them in areas where not much else can survive.

Inshore fish primarily feed on mullet making small topwater plugs, jerk-shads, and paddle tail baits great choices. It’s often not uncommon to see these fish along the beach migrating up and down the coast, look for rolling fish along the entire coast, get up ahead of the school or fish and try to lead them by several feet, baits like mullet, Pogies, or larger swimbaits are great in these scenarios and with the possibility of fish over 100lbs don’t be scared to throw a larger profile bait. Tarpon have amazing vision so the lighter the leader the better. I prefer 40/50lb fluorocarbon for good abrasion resistance while still being able to produce a bite, however it is important to really power these fish in quick on larger gear and never remove from the water especially on fish over 10lbs.

Tarpon season is just beginning and should only improve until the fall, so get out and enjoy this incredible fishery the Indian River lagoon and Space Coast has to offer!

The inshore bite has been good as long as you get started before the sun comes up. Water is in the mid 80s early morning and hotter as the sun comes up. There are some snook, redfish and big jacks around the bait schools. Keep an eye out for the big schools of jacks cruising through the bait pods.

Beach fishing is spotty. There have been some schools of jacks daisy chaining and you will get one good shot to get one to eat. If you can’t make it happen on the first or second cast most times the schools will spook and not eat after that. We found a few tarpon and some sharks along the beach but they aren’t here in numbers yet. It seems everything is a little behind this season as it was during the spring. Water temps have been fluctuating with the changing winds and there hasn’t been consistency with the bait and the gamefish. East winds this coming week and some rain should help the bait situation and stabilize the water temps to keep the predators feeding.

Harold C. with a nice snook at the inlet!

Hello, Sebastian Inlet fans and friends; I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend, even though it was scorchingly hot! Unfortunately, this week’s report is dismal once again. Yeah, I know, it’s been a weird year due to the constantly changing water temperatures combined with SSE winds keeping the water dirtied up on the south side all the time. It’s tough to target anything with assurance, but there are some fish being caught — just not many, or what should be aught this time of year. It doesn’t help that the north jetty and north wall where the snapper fishing is good, is still closed. It’s all good, patience is a virtue, and good things come to those who wait! So, I’m told. Anyway, here’s all I have.

Nobody was fishing the north side over the weekend. Maybe one or two anglers, but they were catching nothing. On the south side, the only action was at the tip of the south jetty and the beach pocket area — outgoing tide — where they were catching really nice sand perch, or silver mojarra (which is their real name), along with decent whiting and plenty of puffers! Cut shrimp was the bait of choice. I don’t have anything to report about the incoming tide as it was late in the day and I had left by then. Back in the T-dock area, it was Deadsville as well, nothing. Even the boats that were around weren’t doing anything. With snook season closed until September 1, most anglers won’t be out because snook is what everyone is after. The surf on the north side was absent of any anglers; all beachgoers there. The south surf, as I mentioned earlier, sand perch and decent whiting and puffers, and an occasional bonnet head shark to keep things interesting.

That’s all I have to report for this one, mostly due to the outgoing tides being poor for fishing the south side because it is so shallow, the SSE winds making things dirty, and NO baitfish found on either side. I wish you all a great and safe week. Cheers!” — Snookman.

The tournament on Saturday was a HUGE success! A big congrats to the winners, and thanks to all the sponsors, participants and hard-working volunteers that helped make it happen!

I’ve lived in the Melbourne area for nearly 30 years, and I’ve lived almost everywhere here — Downtown, Melbourne Beach, Indialantic, Eau Gallie, etc., — not Palm Bay, though. Dear Lord, NEVER Palm Bay. I don’t even like stepping foot in Palm Bay — let alone recreating in the City’s collective toilet. I’m just trying to catch a few fish here man, NOT E. COLI!

Want an inside look at the City of Palm Bay’s Waste Management in action? Check it out below.

The weather here in New Smyrna Beach, Daytona Beach and South into Mosquito Lagoon has heated up but so has the fishing. There has been some scorchers this past week but that bite continues to only get stronger. The backwaters of New Smyrna Beach is thriving with bait and the grass flats of Mosquito Lagoon is the same. Look for the bait pods and the game fish will be there as well. Live bait has been working well like pin fish, mullet and shrimp. The early morning has been producing a good top water plug bite and as the sun gets higher switching over to a soft plastic or a spoon has been working well for artificial. It looks as though the extended forecast is showing summer is here to stay but no complaints here with the bite that we are having.

Context & Outcome

At their late-May meeting, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), in coordination with NOAA Fisheries, considered a proposal to impose a seasonal closure on all recreational bottom fishing in Atlantic state waters (from St. Johns County northward). After hundreds of public comments and in-person testimony, commissioners voted against a seasonal ban—meaning anglers keep year-round access to wrecks, reefs and artificial structures along the Northeast Florida coast. They also approved new “flexible” metrics for defining and measuring overfishing under the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA), intended to prevent future unplanned closures by relying less on blanket assumptions and more on real-time data.

The Good

• No Seasonal Closure: Recreational bottom fishing remains open 12 months a year, preserving access to snapper, grouper, triggerfish and deep-drop species.
• Flexibility in Overfishing Metrics: FWC will allow managers to use updated survey techniques and discard-mortality estimates rather than rigid models—reducing the chance of sudden emergency shutdowns.
• Effective Public Engagement: Hundreds of anglers and guides showed up for the hearings, and their testimony swayed decision-makers. Fishing organizations and supportive elected officials helped block what would have been the first Atlantic bottom-fishing moratorium in state history.

The Bad

• Stubby Snapper Season: Despite keeping bottom fishing open, FWC set the Atlantic recreational red snapper season at just two days in federal waters (late May), compared to 126 days in the Gulf of Mexico. That stark disparity leaves Atlantic anglers with almost no opportunity to target red snapper under the current federal quota.
• Missed Trade-Off: Had anglers accepted a limited seasonal closure they might have forced NOAA to allocate more snapper days—perhaps 4–9 days—but commissioners judged that a paltry gain for giving up nine months of bottom-fishing access.

The Ugly

• Discard-Mortality Rules Coming: FWC signaled it will adopt stricter measures to reduce fish tossed overboard dead—likely via gear restrictions. Early proposals target “chicken rigs” (multi-hook bottom rigs) and electric reels used for deep drops. If enacted, these could shut out anglers chasing non-snapper species in 200–300 ft of water, until final discard-mortality studies are completed. Details are expected at next week’s rule-development workshop.

Got out on Fish Lake Saturday for a few hours and put 4 in the boat. Couldn’t get into the second cove because of floating mats of weeds, pads and hydrilla. Fought our way through the hydrilla into the first cove and was able to get a couple in the boat including the biggest of the day 2.88lbs, pictured. Fished a Yum Swim n Dinger in watermelon pearl along the edges of the floating mats of weeds and pads. Missed a bunch as I think that they were just grabbing the tail. Went out across the lake and tried to fish along the reed edge but too much hydrilla to do much good, missed a couple and had one break off. Moved out a little and fished the edges of the hydrilla and got a couple more. Let the wind push us back across towards the canal leading to the ramp and fished the deep hole there and hooked up on a few but lost them on the way to the boat.