Windy, but Finding Fish
Even though it’s been windy, at Fineline Fishing Charters we’ve been able to find fish along the flats and in some of the near-coastal waters.
Member since: January 15, 2019
Captain Justin Ross is a third generation Florida native and 2nd generation fishing guide on the waters of east central Florida. Being the son of Captain Jim Ross, Justin was taught how to fish almost before he could walk.
Even though it’s been windy, at Fineline Fishing Charters we’ve been able to find fish along the flats and in some of the near-coastal waters.
The cold weather has slowed the bite down a bit but there are still quite a few fish out there to be caught. We’ve managed to stay on the big reds in the near shore waters pretty consistently. In the river, the trout and redfish bite has been good as well. The snook, however, have been hunkered down trying to stay warm.
The trout bite in the rivers this week has been very good around the sunny side of mangrove islands. With the water temperature cooling down a lot of these fish are looking to get warm by sitting in the sun. We’ve been using topwater lures and 2 to 4 inch Saltwater Assassin paddle tails to get these fish to eat.
Despite crappy weather conditions the last few days, we have managed to get out on a couple of trips. Captain Justin has been consistently catching slot size redfish in the Banana river this past week and there has been a solid trout bite in the coves around the Sebastian and grant area.
Well, if you managed to dodge the rain for the last week, you probably had some pretty good fishing. The sharks, snook, kingfish, jacks, redfish and even the tarpon have been very eager to play lately. We’ve been catching the fish on a wide variety of things from live finger mullet to pogies and even on artificial using topwater lures such as the explode mini and subsurface lures like the subwalk. All you have to do is follow the caravan of mullet up or down the beach until you see them getting fed on and with snook season here, you can even take one home with you if you catch one in the slot. I expect the fishing to get even better into the next week as the mullet run continues to grow.
Big bull redfish are on everyone’s mind during the last part of August and first few weeks of September. These breeder sized fish should be getting ready to start schooling up in the Mosquito Lagoon and Indian River Lagoon and this is a time of year when you can target them with artificial lures like a Rapala Skitterwalk top water plug or a size 12 Rapala X-Rap lipped diving plug.
The early morning trout and snook bite has been great this week on the 4” Rapala Skitterwalk in the redfish and trout colors. I’ve been consistently getting above-slot trout and snook anywhere from 20 to 28 inches
Fishing this week has been surprisingly good with all of the wind that we’ve had. The cold temperatures seem to be pushing the fish into the deeper channels and waterways around the Indian River.
The trout bite has been as consistent this week as it was last week. You can catch these fish on 4 inch Saltwater Assassin paddle-tails around the drop offs in the Indian River Lagoon. On the days when it is overcast in the morning they have been responding well to topwater lures as well. The drum bite has turned back on this week and we are getting good numbers of these fish on crabs and shrimp as well as fishbites.
We had a really good trout bite this past week on topwater and paddle-tails fishing around the drop offs and in the sandy holes in the river. Most of these fish have responded better in the afternoon rather than the morning. The black drum have been actively feeding when you can find them, especially when the sun warms the water up. The bluefish, pompano and Spanish mackerel are in the shallow waters near the beaches and we have been getting them to bite Goofy style jigs as well as small paddle-tails and subsurface baits like Rapala Subwalks. Make sure you give us a call at 321-636-3728 or go to our website finelinefishingcharters.com for booking information.