I only made it out a few times this week, but it was still a productive one. I landed a nice snook and a fairly large winter backwater tarpon.

Fishing for schooling redfish and black drum has been on fire, especially with the cooler water temperatures.

Great week of warmer weather, calm river and ocean brought a great week of fishing inshore and nearshore. We’ve been getting a lot of good trout on the flats and around the deeper mangrove shorelines and plenty of pompano, jacks, bluefish and ladyfish on the flats and shorelines as well.

This past week was all about an old friend and a fly rod. I first met John from a referral from another guide for someone to take him on a fly-fishing charter. This was over 18 years ago and ever since that first outing we have spent time on the boat together with our fly gear.

Near-shore action remains strong out of Sebastian and Port Canaveral this week. We’ve been catching really good numbers of tripletail that are averaging 8 to 15 pounds.

The winter time fishing in New Smyrna Beach backwaters has been good and with the circulating cool fronts this week it will be even better.

In the build up to, or the early days of a cold snap, the wind often blows pretty strongly from the north. That makes the residential canals of the Banana River a great place to spend an afternoon looking for fish. Not only does it offer wind protection, but it also offers a deeper water refuge with plenty of man made structure.

I hope everyone had a fantastic New Years celebration, and that you’re all getting a chance to take your new fishing rods, reels and lures that you got for Christmas out to see just how much the fish like them.