Last week’s cool front changed landscape
High winds and low temps have made mats move and hydrilla shrink back
These are new areas to target
Shiner dunking has still been producing and artificial bite has been better in heating up period of day.. The high pressure dictates close to cover. Full moon will continue to push fish up from deep onto flats. It’s a temperature and moon thing. Gotta go to get em still have dates in December

Our guide Matt with a beautiful Black Drum

What’s up East Side family! We have a little bit of a rough week setting up high winds and surf this coming Wednesday 12/11 until at least Monday 12/16. Best bets to catch a fish will be finding clean water, and manageable surf.

We will have to switch from fishing light pyramid sinkers into fishing Sputnik sinkers to hold bottom. We start with 3oz and move up to 5oz or 6oz if needed. Don’t be afraid of rough surf and high winds, these conditions typically trigger a feeding pattern if you can locate the fish. Another tip to get past the wind is to drop down from a standard Double dropper rig to a single drop. These rigs are more aerodynamic and cast further than your standard pompano rig due to less drag from additional lines, bait and hardware.

Here’s one of our clients from last week Friday with a nice Melbourne Permit

We hope to see some quality fishing during this stir up but we’ll take what we can get with this seasons weather patterns. Tight lines and good fishing!

It’s been a fantastic snook season since the opening back in September. Justin and I have had our anglers land over 200 snook since the season opener. There are still a few days left before the season closes in mid December. If you would like to try for a snook or two, now is your last chance of this snook season to book a fishing charters with one of us before the winter closure on the 15th of the month. We are coming into the winter months and our techniques and the species we target will be changing. Sheepshead, pompano, whiting, tripletail, bluefish and others are going to make up the bulk of our catches along the near-coastal waters. In the lagoons, we will be targeting speckled trout, redfish and black drum on many of our adventures. This is a great time of year for those of you who don’t like to sweat to death and still catch some fun species. Give captain Justin or myself a shout at 321-505-8217 and we’ll see what kind of action we can get you into over the cooler months of the year.

Fishing has been steady this past week with whiting, small batches of pompano and bluefish showing up in the first and second troughs. The water has been fairly clean, though there’s been a noticeable current pushing rigs around. Waves have been relatively calm compared to previous weeks.

Looking ahead, the week seems promising for wave swells, but stronger winds might discourage some fishermen. Pay attention to wind direction—it shouldn’t affect beach fishing too much until Friday evening, when larger swells are expected to hit for the weekend.

Last week, the most productive tide was the low turn, with a few hours of solid fishing action. A 3-5 oz sputnik weight was essential to keep baits steady for the fish to find. Frozen shrimp pieces, live sand fleas, and clam strips are the go-to baits for this time of year, so be sure to stock up—they’ll be your best bet for the next few months. Remember, fish can be fickle: they might love one bait one day and ignore it the next. Always be prepared! Speaking of preparation, don’t forget to pack plenty of pompano rigs. Bluefish and small sharks are out in force and can tear through your gear in no time. That’s all for this week—tight lines, everyone!

Good morning, Sebastian Inlet fishing junkies. I hope everyone had a great weekend and enjoyed the nice weather! That is going to change on Wednesday when a cold front comes through, heralding stiff breezes and big surf. If you’re going to fish, get it done these next two days. So here we go with the report.

First, just a reminder that snook season closes on Sunday, December 15, and will reopen on February 1. The fishing has been lackluster due to the cold water (66 degrees along our coast) and that in itself will sometimes slow the action as it gets too cold for everything. The snook fishing has pretty much shut down. You might find some, but you’re going to have to search for them. Most of the snook being caught are the juvenile undersized fish who don’t mind the cold so much. They are pretty much everywhere in the inlet.

North side

The boaters again are off the NE tip of the jetty doing well again, with lots of black drum, some pompano and sheepshead for the ones fishing live shrimp. The snook are mostly undersized, but plentiful, and you just might find a slot fish in the mix. Also being caught are redfish on live baits, pins, pigs, shrimp. Incoming tide is similar along the tide line on the inlet side of the jetty. Back by the steel, west of the tide pool, they have been catching black drum and sheepshead on cut shrimp, also some redfish and small snook. No flounder yet. Probably won’t hear much about them on this side this year due to all the good areas being closed to anglers due to the ongoing construction project.

South side

On the south jetty the fishing has been rather good, with good numbers of black drum, sheepshead and pompano on dead and live shrimp, and sandfleas on both tides, beach side of the jetty. The incoming tide has produced the same, but in smaller numbers. The snook over here on the incoming tide, as I have mentioned, are of the smaller undersized fish, but there have been a few keepers in the mix — you just have to put in the time to find one. Live baits and artificials are working. Another species I did hear about were the flounder, one lucky angler did catch a nice one about 3-4 pounds on a live finger mullet fished in the surf pocket area along the rocks. Along the shoreline from the bridge west to the T-Dock there have been fairly good numbers of sheepshead being caught on dead shrimp and sandfleas. Either tide is working, you just have to find them. Also, there are some of the smaller fun snook wanting to play on live baits and swim baits.

T-Dock are

Back here, it has been slow, with only the annoying puffers, and a couple of stingrays I saw the other day when I was down there. A couple of my friends were fishing around the cleaning station on the incoming tide the other day and caught a few black drum, but only one was big enough to keep, along with a redfish, and a small mangrove snapper, and a couple undersized snook. All were caught on live and dead shrimp.

Surf Areas, Both Sides

The surf fishing has largely been blown out with the NNW and NNE winds dirtying the water again, and it’s going to get worse after Wednesday.!

That’s it in a nutshell. There’s fish out there; you just have to work for them. I hope everyone has a great week!

It was a tough bite this week after the cold blast we had both on Headwaters and the Lagoon. The freshwater bite throwing artificial lures was very slow but there have been good reports of the ones using live shiners. Water temperatures are at the 62 degree mark on both waters. As for the saltwater bite, most if not all our fish yesterday were sitting on the bottom in deeper calmer water areas. Using soft plastics with a 1/4 oz. jig head kept your bait on the bottom enough to get a bite. Plenty of small trout and to my surprise a couple of small snook in the mix, too. Today and tomorrow we have a good warm up but Wednesday we have another front coming through with very cold windy days to follow. I guess I can’t complain since there is no snow involved.

Winter is in full swing as cold fronts have been colder than the last few years for late November/December. Water temps are in the mid to low 60s pretty steady which makes the snook fishing tough in the lagoon but the inlet bite has still been pretty good mostly on the warmer days and night time. Live bait has been the key but the night time bite is always better on artificial as well. There’s also a few flounder, redfish and black drum in the inlet. Inshore bite is mostly trout, bluefish, pompano and jacks with plenty of sheepshead and black drum mixed in around the docks. Macs out on the beach as well as spinner and blacktip sharks on poppers and bait.

The few days that we were able to get offshore were very good. The kingfish bite was on fire and so was the bottom bite. There were plenty of lane snapper and triggerfish to go around and we even saw a few little grouper pop up. We pretty much just fished around Pelican Flats because we didn’t really need to go anywhere else. We are starting to see some cobia and pop up again too. Now is the time to get them. Pretty much from now till February and then they’ll probably be gone for the year again. The good old days of March madness are gone.

The red fishing and black drum fishing has been on fire this past week and with the entrance of another massive cold front look for the bike to continue. Redfish as well as black drum have started to school up in schools of 50 to 150 fish, which is incredible to see in the crystal clear water of Mosquito Lagoon. I have days available as well as gift certificates for the fisher person in your life, you can get gift certificates by going to FatFishGuide.Com or call me directly at 386-295-5991.

Ty Beck caught two nice kings while on break from Georgia Southern. The fish were caught two miles east of the weather buoy on a beautiful day.

Skylar Beck caught this nice blackfin tuna just outside the cones. Skylar was fishing with her brother and dad. She also was visiting from Georgia Southern. Go Eagles!

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.