01-21-2004, 02:36 PM
Inshore fishing along the Treasure Coast during he past few weeks has been awesome! The majority of the fish have been sitting in deeper water. Area bridges, including the 25-cent and 10-cent are holding lots of black drum (3-6 lbs.) along with big croakers over 3 lbs. Other species include mangrove snapper, sheephead, goliath grouper with a few snook and mackerel mixed in. Shrimp and trollrites on the bottom have been working great. To increase your odds, use nothing bigger than a 2/0 hook and break the shrimp in half, using a 1” piece. There are lots of bait stealers down deep like sheephead and snapper that will simply pull off a larger frozen or live shrimp. The drum like to run with the bait and not really “whack” it. So, if you feel the line pulling slowly, stick it to him and set the hook. All the goliath grouper have been under 10 lbs. but lots of fun (since they are catch and release only).
Moving into the St. Lucie Inlet area, there have been lots of fish, both inside and outside of the rocks. We’ve been bouncing jigs tipped with shrimp and getting some nice sheephead to 4 lbs. with an assortment of jacks, blue runners, mackerel, grunts, black margate and snapper rounding out the catch. It’s not uncommon to catch scorpion fish here, so be careful! If you are not sure what you have on the end of the line, DO NOT TOUCH!!! Just cut the line as close to the fish as you can without risk of injury.
Peck’s Lake is a madhouse with hundreds of boats banging on the mackerel. Last week we ran to Peck’s and fished among the masses. It’s not bad enough that you have 200 boats packed into a small area with some casting and some netting, but now there are a half dozen boats that decided this is a good place to troll. These trollers are zig-zagging in between everyone. It’s quite a show! This year I haven’t really seen the glass minnow schools being assaulted by both macks and birds. When the bait thickens (usually in February) it’s easy to just search for diving birds that are feasting on the bait being pushed to the surface by mackerel.
Inside, around the crossroads, plenty of boats have been anchored up waiting for the pompano run. Looks like most of the boats are using surf rigs (double and triple kayle hooks) with sand fleas. There are lots of boats here but I haven’t seen them pulling in many fish. Maybe it’s a short half-hour bite that everyone is just waiting for. It’s hard to tell because if I don’t see bent rods while I am cruising past, I just keep on moving. Most of the pompano we have caught lately have been in the Sailfish Flats. Even Hell’s Gate has been slow for pomps.
The trout action in the grass flats north of Jensen Causeway has slowed down. I haven’t targeted trout much this year except for hitting a few spoil islands. I know a few seniors that I have breakfast with, who wade every morning then give me their reports. One gent named Sonny, who is a real trout and snook slayer and uses mainly split-tail grubs, says the past few weeks have been slow (even for the “fish slayer”). I normally start fishing the grass around March, along with channel markers. Catch 22 ended up 2003 with 105 tripletail, so we are increasing the goal for 2004 to 122!!!
Heading down to the Keys second week in February for a 3 day trip to the Dry Tortugas aboard the Yankee Capts. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and bang on some mutton snapper and grouper. Will post results of the trip when I return.
Tight lines everyone and take a kid fishing. Capt. Bob Bushholz (772) 225-6436
www.catch22fish.com
[signature]
Moving into the St. Lucie Inlet area, there have been lots of fish, both inside and outside of the rocks. We’ve been bouncing jigs tipped with shrimp and getting some nice sheephead to 4 lbs. with an assortment of jacks, blue runners, mackerel, grunts, black margate and snapper rounding out the catch. It’s not uncommon to catch scorpion fish here, so be careful! If you are not sure what you have on the end of the line, DO NOT TOUCH!!! Just cut the line as close to the fish as you can without risk of injury.
Peck’s Lake is a madhouse with hundreds of boats banging on the mackerel. Last week we ran to Peck’s and fished among the masses. It’s not bad enough that you have 200 boats packed into a small area with some casting and some netting, but now there are a half dozen boats that decided this is a good place to troll. These trollers are zig-zagging in between everyone. It’s quite a show! This year I haven’t really seen the glass minnow schools being assaulted by both macks and birds. When the bait thickens (usually in February) it’s easy to just search for diving birds that are feasting on the bait being pushed to the surface by mackerel.
Inside, around the crossroads, plenty of boats have been anchored up waiting for the pompano run. Looks like most of the boats are using surf rigs (double and triple kayle hooks) with sand fleas. There are lots of boats here but I haven’t seen them pulling in many fish. Maybe it’s a short half-hour bite that everyone is just waiting for. It’s hard to tell because if I don’t see bent rods while I am cruising past, I just keep on moving. Most of the pompano we have caught lately have been in the Sailfish Flats. Even Hell’s Gate has been slow for pomps.
The trout action in the grass flats north of Jensen Causeway has slowed down. I haven’t targeted trout much this year except for hitting a few spoil islands. I know a few seniors that I have breakfast with, who wade every morning then give me their reports. One gent named Sonny, who is a real trout and snook slayer and uses mainly split-tail grubs, says the past few weeks have been slow (even for the “fish slayer”). I normally start fishing the grass around March, along with channel markers. Catch 22 ended up 2003 with 105 tripletail, so we are increasing the goal for 2004 to 122!!!
Heading down to the Keys second week in February for a 3 day trip to the Dry Tortugas aboard the Yankee Capts. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and bang on some mutton snapper and grouper. Will post results of the trip when I return.
Tight lines everyone and take a kid fishing. Capt. Bob Bushholz (772) 225-6436
www.catch22fish.com
[signature]