FISHING By Capt. Dylan Hubbard
HubbardsMarina.com • 727.393.1947
INSHORE-
Bite is usually pretty good on the back side of the full moon. One great tip is looking for actively feeding wading birds. These birds are a great sign that there will be some predatory fish ready to eat your lure or live baits.
The snook, trout and redfish are all feeding better later in the day after the sun gets a chance to warm up the local waters a little bit.
Redfish are biting around the residential docks, shorelines, oyster bars and grass flats. Work live pinfish, cut bait, soft plastic lures and gold spoons as slowly as possible. Keep an eye out for schools of mullet. A few nice redfish often follow these guys around.
Trout love live shrimp or live greenbacks but the artificial paddle tails or soft swim baits work well day or night.
Find Flounder in a sandy bottomed areas adjacent to grass flats or near docks, seawalls, bridges or jetties. These great eating fish are ambush predators that hide on the bottom. Work your bait super slowly or use some light weight on your live bait so it sits on the bottom.
Sheepshead are biting well too They love to eat cut clams, cut oysters, barnacles, fiddler crabs, or small pieces of shrimp on lighter tackle with 2ot hooks.
Tripletail are super thick around the bay and along the beaches, around the markers, buoys and floating debris. Earlier you get out there the better luck you will have getting them to eat your live shrimp on light tackle
NEAR SHORE –
Hogfish bite is hot in 40-70ft of water. I like using a knocker rig style set up for the hogfish with a 1oz egg sinker and a 3-4ot hook with a live shrimp for bait. The red grouper seem active at 50-100ft of water. As waters continue to cool smellier and oily dead baits become more and more effective.
OFFSHORE-
In 120ft – 200ft of water we are seeing very active red and scamp grouper. Big mangrove snapper are hitting on smaller live pinfish or the cut threadfin plugs on double snell rigs. Heavier mangrove snapper tackle typically around 60lb test leader will help you land some of the bigger fish.
We are seeing some nice blackfin tuna around lately as well on the flat lines, occasional on the troll and many on the vertical jigs.