The sheepshead are biting well this past week around the pass. We’re seeing great action on the pompano still. Lots of mackerel in the pass and just off the beaches. Plus, the snook are still very prevalent around the passes and starting to head onto the beaches. Finally, the red fish are showing up on the flats and the bigger reds are hanging around the bottom around the dock lights of johns pass areas at night. Trout action has been pretty steady around the flats and around the lights of Johns pass at night.

The sheepshead are the biggest story this past week especially with the little cold front that came this past Tuesday and Wednesday they were really fired up. The fiddler crabs are the best bait recently for these great eating unique fish that hang around the docks and structures of Johns pass. They will also eat small pieces of shrimp, cut pieces of clams or oysters and even some barnacles. Scraping the barnacles off the poles is a great way to get the sheepshead chummed up and feeding hard.

Pompano have also been fairly prolific from the wester tips of the north and south Johns Pass jetties hitting fiddler crabs on the bottom or live shrimp. However, the pompano will hit artificial lures too like the Nekid Ball Jigz, pompano jigs, or the Doc’s goofy jigs. When fishing for pompano with bait you just leave them still on the sandy bottom. When fishing artificials for pompano you want to just skip the lures just off the sandy bottom areas around 4-8 inches off the bottom as you slowly retrieve the excess line into your reel.

Mackerel are really thick around the pass especially on the incoming tide that pushes the live white bait around the bridges and into the pass the mackerel move in a bit and it makes it easy to target them inside the pass. We recommend the 7/8th oz gotcha plugs worked fast through the current, or you can free line a live shrimp or live white bait into the pass for them too and if you need it a bobber can help give you some weight to cast those free lined live baits.