The fish were hungry and waiting for us to return at the start of the week. Later this past week we faced rough weather Thursday due to the front and the Tuesday all day had a little slower bite than we would have liked but we still caught some great fish.
Kingfish are still around pretty thick in our near shore waters if you can find the bait schools that are scattered around near shore. We are catching them on flat lines and while trolling from around 30 foot all the way throughout our near shore waters to the deepest point of 100ft. Kingfish have been a little leader shy as of late, so lightest possible wire is best when making up your kingfish rigs.
Snapper fishing has gone really well this past week from around 60-100ft of water. The mangroves were excited thanks to that upcoming full moon and we did really well finding the mangroves on our 8-10 hour private fishing charters and even caught a few on our 10 hour all day party boat fishing trips. The mangrove snapper were loving the thredfin plugs on the double snell rigs with around 30-40lb floro leaders. However, light knocker rigs or even jig head fishing for them with spinning rods is a definitely great way to target them too if they are being a little finicky with their cooperation.
Red grouper action is going well in the deepest near shore waters from around 80-100 foot of water on the live pinfish, pigfish or squirrel fish but a big dead threadfin or cut strip of squid will get em to eat as well. Red grouper love sitting around the potholes or flat hard bottom areas that is holding bait shows. They will often be right around the base of the bait shows on the hard bottom areas.
Cobia are really starting to show up in droves in our near shore waters from the beaches all the way through our near shore waters. They love to eat a tail hooked pinfish with around 40-50lb leader and 4-5ot circle hook. However, they will take soft plastic eel looking artificial baits too. One of my favorite cobia pitch baits is a small ¾-1 ounce white bucktail with around a 6-8 inch dark green eel shaped soft plastic on the hook.
Black fin tuna are around the deepest near shore waters still but they have gotten a bit more sporadic as of late. Around those cruise ships anchored outside the end of the Egmont channel seems to be the best place to find em, or around the deep water near shore wrecks.
