WEEKLY FORECAST
12.3.2024 – 12.9.2024
CENTRAL FLORIDA’S BEST FISHING REPORT
Pompano Bill showing off a recent prize pulled from the surf!
The weather’s finally cool, we’re seeing anglers light up pompano in the surf, and as of December first, it’s FLOUNDER SEASON! Not only do we have some great catching opportunities this week, but we’ve got FOUR giveaways running right now, including a surf cart, a Gator-themed Cornhole Set, a FSFA Club family membership, and Strike-Zone Gift Card. Enter for your chance to win in this week’s forecast!
WEATHER & CONDITIONS
BITE OPPORTUNITY INDEX
OFFSHORE
INSHORE
SURF
FRESHWATER
Weather Overview
It looks like we are in for a nice week ahead with low rain chances and mostly sunny skies. Winds will be out of the N/NW until the weekend when it switches out of the ENE on Saturday and ESE on Sunday. The weather window this week is Thursday and Friday (until Friday afternoon) when it appears the wind will pick up. Sunday looks like it could be good too with lower winds. The coolest part of the week is at the beginning of the week. High temperatures the rest of the week will be in the mid 70’s except there may be a little cool down again on Friday.
Resources
GIVEAWAYS
WHAT’S COOLER THAN BEING COOL?
FREE STUFF. That’s what.
With a 79 year track record of service, American Air & Air & Plumbing has long mastered the craft of keeping Central Floridians FEELING COOL with the highest efficiency and reliability in HVAC services. Now they’re taking COOL up a notch by hooking up a lucky Spacefish reader with a Fish-N-Mate Junior Cart. The winner will be announced on December 10, 2024! Note, the winner must pick-up the prize in person at Strike-Zone Fishing in Melbourne.
Weekly Strike-Zone Giveaway
Each week, we’ll randomly draw a name from our email subscriber list to award a $20 Strike-Zone Fishing Gift Card. To enter, all you need to do is subscribe to our weekly forecast email (once subscribed, you’re eligible to win EVERY week).
Congrats to this week's winner, Shaun Buttree, Melbourne
NOTICE: If you are announced as a winner, you must EMAIL US within 5 days to claim your prize (please include your phone number and mailing address), or your prize will be forfeited and added back into the giveaway pool for future winners.
LATEST Reports
Timeout fishing
Went to Soque river in North Georgia near Clarksville. Spent 4 days fly fishing for giant rainbow and brown trout.
It was cold but the fishing was outstanding and we had 8 over 10 lbs and each of us 3 anglers had over 20 each per day
Happy holidays and Merry Christmas. I am back and have days open in December
December is Banging
December has started off with a bang! The fish are big and hungry. Snook, bull redfish, tripletail and black drum are the main species captain Justin and I have had come over the gunnel this past week. Live baits like croakers, finger mullet and shrimp seem to be working best. We continue to rig these live baits on a 3/4 to 1-once knocker rig or 1/4 ounce Assassin jig head. As long as the water temps continue to stay in the lower 70 degree range along the near-coastal waters you can expect this incredible bite to continue.
If you missed our Black Friday special of $75 off any trip booked with captain Justin or myself for the 2025 season, we are extending it for our Spacefish readers through the end of the week. That’s right. You can get our once a year Black Friday special toward any trip booked with us in the coming year and save. Call 321-505-8217 and captain Justin will provide you with the discount code so you can book your trip with us online at your convenience.
Let’s go catch your next memory before the fishing slows!
Kayak Bassin’ in the Winter – Best Spots
Kayak Bass - Winter Spots
Happy Monday Spacefish!
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! We traveled to Georgia over the break to see family on both sides, we returned home on Saturday night. I was able to get out and fish yesterday. It was a new spot in my ongoing research to find the best winter inshore fishing spots. It was “ok” I will go into more detail in a future report about this spot, one of the reasons I did not do as well as I hoped to write about it, was because of the wind. It was a classic winter time North wind, and it made it difficult to fish. Now there are certain times of the year when breezy weather can be beneficial to inshore fishing, but the winter is not that time, especially when it is bringing in chilly air temps.
But it did get me thinking about something, I thought about my fishing trips over the past 2 years on the weekend after Thanksgiving. They have both been freshwater, Bass trips, and they both were pretty successful.
One of the things I do, or at least try to do, is to keep a log book of fishing trips. Whether it was good, bad, ugly, or epic. I try to write down my thoughts going into the trip, and my thoughts afterwards. It helps me to build on positive trends, and nip negative ones in the bud. So I went back and looked and I saw that I had picked the spots I did to gain protection from the north winds.
Kayak Bassing – Winter
So I am not sure honestly what my all time PB Bass is, but I know that I have caught some of the bigger ones in the Winter-Early spring time, this time of year I enjoy Bass fishing more than inshore fishing. Inshore fish tend to slow down with their metabolism, the weather gets colder, they don’t move as much and don’t eat as much. Now this is true amongst Bass as well, but they also spawn earlier in Florida, so you will see them eat more to gear up for spawning season than an inshore species like Snook, who spawns in the summer.
Also Bass tend to be more aggressive and bite lures more than inshore fish as well, so with all that being said, Bass fishing can provide more action during the colder weather months than inshore fishing. Those factors are why I tend to do more Bass fishing in the winter, and more inshore fishing in the summer. The Bluebird skies and the post frontal high pressure days affect Bass too, but I have had more success catching Bass in good size, and numbers on those type of days, than I have catching inshore fish.
December Bass
Spot #1 – The Stick Marsh
Stick Marsh - North Bank
One of the areas that has been good to me in December-January is the northern part of the Stick Marsh. Launching out of Fish Fellsmere Grade Recreation Area I get through the canal that leads boats to the main lake, but instead of going south, I head west where there is roughly 3 miles of wind protected shoreline and structure. To be fair, I have had great days in other times of year fishing this same path, but getting the protection from the wind in the winter is pretty clutch. My best areas have been working that area about halfway between the east & west sides of the lake when you can push in behind the submerged palm trees and work that pocket about a mile or so down. Sometimes the fish are in the trees, sometimes they are on the outside, and sometimes they push up in the shallows near the shoreline. It may take a while to find the pattern, but once you do, you should be able to catch a lot of fish, and catch some of quality size as well.
The pegged weight Texas rig Speed Worm has always been good to me in this area, during this time of year, but a Watermelon Red Fluke style bait, and a Black/Blue Senko works well too, especially if the fish are moving slower and want something more subtle. I fish both of these baits weightless and weedless. They are both all time-classic Bass fishing staples, but remember to be patient and fish them slow and patiently. Both baits are designed to trigger bites on “the fall” and Stick Marsh does not have the same type of underwater vegetation as most Florida lakes.
Lake Toho - Winter Bass
Spot #2 – Lake Toho
So for Lake Toho I have two spots within this large lake that both offer the same advantages. The two launch spots are Whaleys Landing Public Boat Ramp which is located in the south-eastern corner of the lake; and Brownie Wise Park or Big Toho Marina in the northern part of the lake.
They both offer lots of places to fish with plenty of structure/cover that not only serves as vital fish habitat, but it serves as a buffer from the chop on the water that can be a real pain in the you-know-what when you are fishing from a kayak. The first spot I’ll talk about is the north end of the lake, here is a map of the areas I like pictured below. I drew lines of the areas I went to from the Big Toho Marina.
Lake Toho - From Whaley's Landing
I fished this spot last year during Christmas break, and I went to the outside edges of the grass line first. I launched early in the morning and it was chilly out, so I targeted this area with deeper water, somewhere between 6-8 feet. As the sun rose and the weather warmed I gradually went into where it was shallower. I did well in the area around the channel where I could target depth contours and still works baits in the emergent vegetation which is the #1 type of cover on Lake Toho.
I never caught anything of great size, I just caught a ton of fish on this trip, it was a 25+ catch day on two presentations, a Gambler EZ Swimmer in Copperfield on a screw-lock belly weight hook, and a pegged tungsten Texas Rig with a Zoom Junebug Red speed worm. The T-rigged work around the contours and the Gambler in the grass.
Lake Toho - From Downtown Kissimmee Marina
The other spot that worked well last winter was this area of Lake Toho launching out of Whaley’s Landing and heading SSE towards Friar’s Cove. This is a great place to fish during pre-spawn and during the spawn as you can find good spawning grounds inside the outer edge of Kissimmee Grass. I’ve caught some decent fish out of this area. Mostly I have caught good numbers here, but I was with a guy who caught an absolute tank in this spot in January of 2023. That was the day I became a believer in the Swimming Senko style of bait, which works well here on a Texas Rig, the same way I do speed worms. But I have also had success with fluke style baits, especially targeting pockets around the spawning areas.
The color pattern that has worked well for me is a natural green pumpkin/watermelon color with red and purple flakes. Also anything natural with some additional gold flake works well too. I don’t know why, but those colors seem to outperform the Junebugs and the Blacks/Blues in this corner of the lake.
Lake Toho - Winter Bass
Summary & Conclusion
These two fishing spots are not the be all, end all. There are other spots out there that offer protection from the harsh winds that sweep down from the north country. I think the key to the formula is to find spots that offer wind protections but have enough water to hold a large number of fish, and enough structure and cover to get them to concentrate and have depth contours and areas with deeper water and areas of shallower water. Not to sound like a broken record, I feel like I end up saying this a lot here, but fishing the fish is way more important than what you throw at the fish. Colors matter, size and profile and ability to rig matters but none of those things matter if you don’t present them to a fish.
Is there a spot you like to fish in the winter months? What am I missing, I would love to hear from you if you have any spots or suggestions for great winter time kayak Bass fishing!
I’d like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, and a (early) very Merry Christmas, make sure to check out Kayaks By Bo when you are out doing your Christmas shopping! Thanks for reading, until next time!
Lane, Mangroves, Triggers, and More
The Ocean Obsession out of Sunrise Marina at Port Canaveral have had their customers on the fish. It’s been a nice mix of lane snapper, mangrove snapper, triggerfish and some other species mixed in too. If you want to get out and catch some of these tasty critters, give them a call to book your spot on the next trip.
Flounder Season!
Good morning all my Sebastian Inlet friends and family! I hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving with friends and family! So here’s this weeks update on the fishing at the inlet. Last week the fishing was pretty dang good with the cooler water temperatures, 72, and the fact that it had cleaned up quite a bit and the fish were on a roll so to speak.
The hotspot was the NE tip of the north jetty, but only the lucky boaters could fish that area, luck dogs. But it’s all good because the south side was producing fish as well. The boats, some of them who were fishing with live shrimp and not just live pins, pigs, and croakers were catching quite a few really nice black drum, sheepshead, pompano, redfish and a lot of small snook, mostly undersized because when the water cools down the juveniles love to come out to play! That all ended on Friday afternoon when the seas and the NNE winds decided to pick up and make it too rough to fish there anymore. The south jetty was pretty good all week as well, up until Friday afternoon when it all went away with the winds and seas picking up. Both tides they were catching some black drum, sheepshead, pompano, and even some small bluefish. Sand fleas and either live or dead shrimp worked for everything. A couple of the guys were using the small goofy jigs to catch the pompano, beachside. The incoming tide along the rock shoreline was producing black drum, sheepshead and black margates on cut shrimp. Some snook were around, but they were mostly the smaller fun ones. Any live bait will entice them, and smaller swimbaits. The water temperature of the water along our coast has now dropped down to 69 degrees with the north winds we have been seeing. This in turn will make our cool water species want to bite, if the water cleans back up.
Flounder season just opened up December the first, so they should be showing, there have been a small number of them caught last month, but they were small, and closed. The limit for them is 14 inch minimum with a bag limit of 5 per person per day. Live shrimp, small finger mullet and mud minnows are the preferred baits, but they can be caught on small artificials too. Anywhere along the shoreline you can find them, incoming tide is the best, and at the tide change periods either tide. Another species that usually show up this time of year when the water gets this cold and cleans up is the spotted seatrout, but they are still closed until January the first. The stats for these fish in our area are, 2 per person per day, 15 inch minimum, 19 inch maximum, and one of those two fish can be over the 19 inch maximum, but you can only keep two fish. The south side is usually where a lot of them hang out. Live shrimp is the best bait for them, but they do gat caught by the anglers fishing with mud minnows and small finger mullet. Also, the smaller artificials work well with them. I did hear that there are a lot of them in the intercoastal, back side of the inlet, along with some pompano.
The T-Dock area has been a hit or miss deal with the fish, some days there are some spanish mackerel back there on small white jigs, and also there have been reports of some of the black drum and sheepshead being caught on live and dead shrimp. Not much action on the snook back here, except for the nigh timers tossing flair jigs, they are catching a few, but most are too big to keep. The surf is a blown out mess again!!
So that’s all I have for now my friends. This week is going to be a little brutal with the stiff winds all week, and the kicked up waves , and the cold weather. It should start laying back down and warming up some by Thursday, so we shall see how that goes. I hope everyone has a wonderful week!
Good Fishing Offshore
The fishing has been good overall offershore when we can get out.
It looks like Thursday and Friday are going to cooperate this week for getting offshore. On the reefs the kingfish are here which is a great sign. Other species we are catching are cobia and don’t be surprised if Mr. Sailfish makes an appearance, as well. Nearshore, the shark fishing has remained strong. We are seeing some really nice bull redfish, too. The snook bite has been fantastic around the jetties at Port Canaveral. If you can cast net some mullet, you’ll be in great shape. I have to mention that some really nice size tripletail are showing up, too.
Black Drum Starting to School Up
We had great fishing for Thanksgiving week and hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday. The massive cold front really turned the fish on with multiple species being caught every day. Black drum are starting to school up on deep edges and will eat a shrimp tipped jig head. Snook, redfish and trout are moving into the flats near deeper water as the sun comes up and starts to warm the shallows. Even got to fish with an actor from an HBO series. I have days open throughout the month you can come catching by calling 386-295-5991 or get a gift certificate at fatfishguide.com.
Trout, Pompano in the Lagoon
The Lagoon is giving up lots of trout. Water temperatures were in the mid 60’s which have made the fish lay lower in deeper water close to the bottom. Jigging a small plastic off the bottom will get strikes. Also fishing along deeper mangroves using the same techniques as before. Fishing like this also has a bonus to it as well. Pompano will run in the same waters, too.
Headwaters fishing is still challenging for the artificial bite. Moving around covering water until you get a bite then slowing down to pick the spot apart before moving on. The fish were staging close to heavier hydrilla areas with sparse open water with scattered grass surrounding these areas. My best bite came on a Gambler Slim EZ in the Copperfield color with a 3/16 oz. weight. Swimming this lure slowly through the grass got my fish. As I’m writing this report it’s cold outside and tomorrow even colder. This change will have a slower catch ratio but when we come into a warm up from the cold fronts will be a better bite.
First Cold Week of Fishing
This is the first cold week of fishing in a while. The bite changed but we still caught a lot of fish, mostly school trout along with a bunch of jacks, bluefish, mackerel and pompano. Soft plastics have been the key in the lagoon and fish areas with moving water.
The inlet bite was pretty good with some redfish and snook on live bait around the tide changes. Beach bite is pretty good as well with some pompano, jacks and a few mackerel. If you’re willing to make runs when it’s calm, you should be able to find plenty of mackerel and some kingfish south towards Vero. We are having another cold week which will cool the water temps some more and keep that bit slower in the lagoon. However, if you get out and work the deeper water you will find plenty of action with smaller fish and even be able to bring some good dinner size fish.
Thanksgiving Day
My boat is in the shop, so I’ve been going to a pond across the street and doing OK. Got 13 on Thanksgiving ranging from half pound up to 2lbs and a BIG girl weighing between 6 and 7lbs, guess no scales. All were caught on a 1/4 ounce Z Man Willowvibe with a white minnow.
Thanksgiving Weekend Radio Report
Get the latest word on the bite with Damon from Spacefish on the Mark Moses Show. We talk local fishing every Friday on the air at 4pm.
Fellsmere lakes on fire
3 forks down a foot but still up Cold front shrank back grass in all lakes especially 3 forks and headwaters. Temps went to 60 and came back up to mid 70’s Shiner dunking is easy picking and slow presentation of plastic worms and flukes has elevated to good.
Lots of grouped up fish chasing bait in deeper water and diving crankbaits are working. Moon going down will spur prepare gorging first spawn will happen on next full moon. Buck bass are peeing and seeing beds everywhere Biggest girl today was 9.3 full of eggs.
Go git em!
Back 1st week of December days are available
CAUGHT ON CAMERA
CATCH A BIG SMILE WITH JASIN YOUMANS DMD!
LOCAL EVENTS
SEE YOU NEXT TUESDAY!
Don’t forget, if you’ve been fishing, we’d love to hear from you!
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