The mackerel are thick nearshore right now we are seeing them from the beach out to around fifteen miles from shore or more. There’s plenty of bait schools out there holding lots of aggressive and quick biting mackerel. Plus, we are even seeing them come up while bottom fishing biting our baits as we are dropping to bottom or reeling up!
Kingfish are around as well but not as thick as we were hoping or used too this time of year. Still waiting for the big push of kingfish that make our near shore waters teem with big kingfish action. We are seeing better numbers offshore, but definitely still waiting near shore for the ‘kingfish run.’ Not to say we aren’t catching a few, but typically when they are thick we are catching a half dozen or so on our half days and a dozen or so on the all day trips. Right now it’s more like a quarter of that action, and were hoping to see more soon maybe this weekend’s front will be the magic we need.
Hogfish action is going well near shore we are seeing lots of these guys from around 30-70ft of water on our five hour half days and ten hour all days. They are a little tough to get dialed into but once they are biting typically you can get a few before the bite shuts down and you got to move on to the next spot. Lighter tackle and live shrimp is key with a super natural presentation. The Nekid ball jig, just plain jig head or the knocker rig methods all with live shrimp seem to continue to be the best options for catching some hogs.
Snapper bite has been consistent lately, we are seeing nice big lane snapper around 60-100 foot of water on shrimp, squid or cut threadfins. Plus, the mangrove snapper are around too but they are mostly a little deeper. Vermillion snapper mixed in out deeper and they love the squid on lighter tackle.
Grouper action is a little hit and miss near shore but out deeper closer to around 80-100 foot of water we are finding a few red grouper and the gags are starting to move in too! The gags will continue to get better and better as the water cools and red grouper will continue to be a little spotty.
