FISHING By Capt. Dylan Hubbard
Inshore–
Sheepshead continue to bite well. They love fiddler crabs, small but strong hooks and light leaders with minimal weight. These sheepsheads will continue to bite continuously through the year but spread out as the water warms up. Spanish mackerel showed back up around beach piers and jetties. They love chasing fast moving flashy lures or gotcha plugs retrieved quickly. Whiting and silver trout are also biting well around the beaches and passes and beach piers as well. Snook action is going well along the flats, residential canals, and mangrove shorelines. Redfish continue to be super active. These guys are in rather good concentrations around the bays especially along those grass flats and mangrove shorelines in around 2-4ft of water. Cut bait and slower moving soft plastics are favorites to target redfish. Trout action remains incredibly good this time of year in the flats, mangroves and dock lines. Greenbacks and live shrimp are go-to live baits for trout on light tackle and the soft plastic shrimp or paddle tails are great artificial baits. Top water lures work best at sunrise, dusk or during very overcast days. Snook, redfish, and trout remain catch and release only through end of May. Pompano has really picked up too. These guys love fiddler crabs, sand fleas or live shrimp on the bottom around those sandy edges of the flats or channels. The small bucktails with the ‘feathers’ or ‘hair’ trimmed back just behind the apex of the hook or the doc’s goofy jigs are best for the pompano.
Near & Offshore–
Hogfish action continues to impress near shore, biting best at 40-60ft. Live shrimp, fiddler crabs, sandfleas, and rock shrimp work well. Lane snapper are really thick from 50-110ft. These guys will also take small pieces of squid or chunks of threadfin. Mangrove snapper is strong at 110-140ft of water offshore. In 50-90ft use live shrimp near the mangroves using the same knocker rig method we use for hogfish. Red grouper action is going well around that deepest water close to the closure line. The deep-water closure or 20 fathom closure continues through the end of March but that hasn’t slowed us down from seeing some nice red grouper around 100-120ft of water. Fishing potholes, hard rock bottom and small ledges were seeing some nice hungry red grouper mixed in with steady mangrove, lane, and vermillion snapper action too. Scamp grouper are mainly caught out deeper past the 120ft mark, but we have seen some nice fish caught lately even in the open area when fishing around 120ft for those red grouper where we can keep them! The scamp love smaller pinfish or threadfins most of the time. Also, we catch them often while targeting mangrove snapper with the double snell rig and lighter tackle. Blackfin tuna are around right now occasionally past 100ft of water. – Capt Dylan Hubbard, Hubbard’s Marina – Call or text me anytime at (727) 393-1947. www.HubbardsMarina.com
