Photo credit: Pompano Bill

Finally, a few days to get out and fish—it’s been forever! The weeds have started to dissipate, but they can still be heavy in some areas of the beach. This week is forecasted to be MUCH better for surf fishing, with the beach swells calming down and the winds finally shifting to make for a more enjoyable time on the beach. Hopefully, the water settles and clears up. The weeds, of course, remain unpredictable, but those who have powered through the greenery have managed to catch some nice fish!

It’s been a mixed bag of fish in the Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral area, with lots of good-sized whiting, eater-sized black drum, margates, lingering pompano, and palometas. The bait of choice has been sand fleas and frozen shrimp pieces. Speaking of fleas, it won’t be long until we start carrying live ones daily—the season is quickly approaching!

There hasn’t really been a defined area to cast into over the past few days to get bites. The fish seem to be stuck in a maze due to the weeds and dirty water, so simply getting your bait in the water is all you can do. However, the northeastern winds have carved out some beautiful troughs for us to fish. Once the water clears and the weeds dissipate, the fishing should be fantastic for a while.

Credit for the picture this week goes to the legend, Pompano Bill. As always, take care, tight lines, and we hope to see everyone soon in the shop!

Slow bite and lots of seaweed off Cape Canaveral. Looking forward to better waters off the beach.

I hope everyone is doing well and catching plenty of fish. The surf has been hit or miss this past week due to weeds, rough waves, and strong currents. On the days when most people managed to get out and fish, the catches included black drum, whiting, plenty of palometas, and a few bluefish.

Using a standard pompano rig paired with a 3-5 oz sputnik sinker was the go-to for most anglers to hold bottom and avoid rolling into shore within a minute. Frozen shrimp pieces and frozen mullet chunks produced the most bites. Fishing the first trough has been incredible; the storms and northeast winds have carved it out quite nicely!

We’re also coming into the season for Spanish mackerel, so stocking up on spoons and Gotcha plugs before they start flying off the shelves would be a smart move.

Looking ahead, waves are expected to pick up again, averaging 4-5 feet, with east winds also increasing. If you plan to fish, don’t forget the sputniks. Hopefully, things will calm down soon, allowing everyone to fish hard.

Tight lines, and have a great week!

Beach fishing this past week, after the storm passed through, wasn’t too shabby for many. There was lots of action along the beachline with pompano, whiting, redfish and black drum. The beach was eroded down to the shelly sands that Cocoa Beach is known for, and the fish absolutely loved it. Surprisingly, the water wasn’t as dirty as it usually is following a storm. Plenty of troughs were dug out for us to fish in as well.

Fishing the close troughs and washouts has been producing the most bites, using frozen shrimp pieces and live sand fleas scattered in the sands. Pink and chartreuse floats on pompano rigs have been the choice of many. Using a 3-4 ounce pyramid lead has been effective on most days, but on some days, a 2-4 ounce Sputnik weight was needed to hold the bottom.

This was a quick report today. Hope y’all get out and fish! Tight lines!

Let me start by saying the beach fishing in the Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach areas has been electric when those mullet schools swing by. Yes, it has been rough on a few days, but the snook, black drum and pompano have been firing most days. All the customers have been running in circles for bait and lures.

All right, let’s calm it down now. We haven’t been tortured or cut short of a mullet run this year by any named storms, allowing these baits to swim naturally for a change. It’s nice to see the schools moving by in the foaming, clean green waves crashing hard along the shore, with mist spraying off the tips as you watch the tarpon and sharks pop them off in the distance. It’s always cool to see, and it’s even more electric to hook onto them, even for a brief second before they jump and launch your lure or bait 10 yards into the distance. It’s every fisherman’s drug—it’s what keeps us fishing more.

Lures of choice have been Live Target silver mullets, along with NLBN 5-inch paddle tails and the good old trusty Bomber hard baits for snook and tarpon. All the other fish have been biting heavily on frozen shrimp pieces and clam rigged on a pompano rig. Lead size is determined by the wave height and current push, so it’s best to have a variety of leads to choose from.

If you have been putting off your fishing trip due to weather forecasts, I highly recommend just going because the fish are there waiting for you. You’re not going to melt in the rain.

Fishing has been heating up on the beach this past week, with big schools of mullet running through. The snook have been hot, and there are some nice tarpon busting the bait pods as well! Big whiting, along with black drum have been showing up, and some nice local pompano are cruising the beachline.

The weather for the week looks like a typical Florida summer forecast: sunny with a chance of brief but severe thunderstorms that last about 10 minutes. The beach swells are going to be ideal for fishing this week as well. As an added bonus, a new moon is on its way, so hitting the morning and evening bites will be key as we approach the start of snook season on September 1st.

The baits of choice for live bait fishermen targeting snook have been pinfish, croakers, and, of course, mullet. Artificial bait fishermen have had success with NLBN 5-inch tails, Hogy Pro Tails, Z-Man Mulletrons, and the elusive Live Target Silver 5-inch mullets. Don’t forget the trusty Bomber lures! Fishing the troughs with the switching tides has been essential for getting the best bites. Don’t try to cast miles out—they’re in close and ready to bite!

I’ll see y’all at the shop. Tight lines!

I hope everyone is doing well this week and had some time to fish over the weekend because it wasn’t too bad for a lot of people. It was a mixed bag of pompano, whiting, palometa and margate. We also saw some black drum make an appearance. You have to fight through the summertime catfish swarms to get to the fish, though.

Water clarity was a bit better than in the past couple of weeks, but it was still somewhat murky. The good news this week is the northeast wind pushing in, which should clean up the beach waters and bring a better bite along with some nice troughs to be dug out on the beach.

Using frozen shrimp pieces and clam strips has been producing the best bites when rigged up on a pompano rig. Unless the waves are pounding, you can get by with a 3-ounce pyramid lead; there’s not much need for sputnik leads in the summertime. Fish have been caught both close in and far out, on both incoming and outgoing tides, so it’s best to just get a line in the water. It does get brutally hot midday, so most people have been fishing in the early mornings and evenings.

Doesn’t everyone enjoy summertime beach fishing in Florida? The sweltering heat, random thunderstorms, southeast winds stirring the waters, and bathtub-warm water! It’s been an off-and-on week with catches of the usual summertime whiting, local pompano, palometas, and ladyfish. This time of year, there aren’t a ton of food-grade fish, but the sharks are all over the place. However, targeting them can be a little tricky this time of year.

At the shop, I get countless questions daily on how to shark fish in the Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach area. Whether you’re after the giant 8ft+ sharks or the normal 3-6 ft sharks, there is a lot to learn about targeting and sizing your rigging to produce the best bites. Today, I’ll be talking about the 3-6 ft sharks, maybe even a tad longer, and how to gauge your techniques.

Call me crazy on this first method, but if a tarpon or big snook is swimming by, it has the best chance to hook them as well as the sharks. All you need are 2x-3x 5/0-6/0 inline circle hooks with 6 feet of 80# mono. Tie it directly to your braid using your favorite braid-to-mono connection. You will lose a lot more hooks fishing this way, but you will produce a lot more bites because there is no wire involved. If you hook a shark on the edge of its mouth, you’re not losing a hook, but you will have 20 people around taking celebrity photos of you, haha.

The second rigging to almost guarantee a nice shark if they bite the bait is using about one foot of #10 single-strand wire inline circle hook to swivel. Attach 5 feet of 200# mono with another ending swivel that will be tied to your main line, preferably 30-50# braid. If you stop by the shop, we can show you how to rig it up if that’s a little confusing.

The bait of choice is whole mullet cut in chunks, bonito steaks, stingray cutlets, and live whiting.

People seem to think that with these smaller sharks, they need super heavy setups to land them. Realistically, you don’t need heavy-duty setups unless your targets are giants. Setting yourself up with a 6000 series reel with 30-60# braid is all you need as long as you have the right leader setup. The rod doesn’t need to be crazy either; a standard medium-heavy 10-12 ft rod will work perfectly fine to get some cool pictures for your family. As long as the rod can cast a 4 oz lead, you’re good to go.

I’ll see y’all at the shop. Tight lines!

July 4th week was filled with packed beaches, and the fish were skittish but still biting. Moving tides were essential when targeting fish other than sharks and catfish. We had lots of reports of some nice pompano this past week, which was awesome to hear. They were all feeding on frozen fleas and shrimp pieces. Using white, orange, and pink floats produced the most bites on the pompano rigs. This week looks like we will be getting some storms here and there, but it is Florida, what do you expect? Haha.

The wind and waves don’t look to show any signs of problems this week, so it should be a great week! The water never really seemed to clean up too well, but the calmer surf led to a decently clean, settled surf. The fish all seemed to be close in on the first trough along with gaps and deeper pockets from washouts that were forming. Many of those areas were along the south Cocoa Beach accesses. If you were snook or tarpon fishing, the sharks were very hard to bypass—they seemed to be everywhere in the water. They were biting on live whiting, bonito, whole mullets and ladyfish. So if you’re a shark fisherman, you won’t be disappointed you went out and tried.

This week we have been dealing with the summer time pattern and the off colored water. The bite has been good early and late evening thru the night after the afternoon showers. The main bite has nice whiting, croakers along with catfish. The bait of choice has been live sand fleas and fish bites. Closer to the inlet they have been picking up some nice mangrove snapper on live finger mullet and mud minnows.