Late December/Early January Fishing
Декабрь 16, 2016
Jacksonville
14 фото
+11
Тёмный горбыль (морской барабанщик)
Камбала
Красный горбыль
Чёрный морской окунь
Кейпкодский карась
Серый луциан
Пятнистый горбыль
Спинорог (серый)
Горбыль (серый)
Описание тура
Описание тура
Water temperatures are still 63 - 64deg and fishing continues to be very productive inshore from the Mayport Jetties to the Blount Island area. We’re catching plenty of seatrout, weakfish, redfish, mangrove snapper, sheepshead, black drum, ringtail porgy, and the occasional flounder. Sheepshead has been the “go-to” fish along with the ringtails and both offer plenty of fun and fillets. The water temps have finally filtered out many of the trash fish and quality sheepshead can be counted on in their place. Bull redfish have been a nice surprise this year as many of the larger ones continue to put smiles on the faces of clients.
There have been a couple of opportunities to get offshore and enjoy some consistent black seabass, red snapper, and triggerfish action along with bull sharks (that was facetious). Several of my counterparts have reported nice cobia being taken on jigs, as well. We got the most action by catching 12-15 live pinfish early in the morning around the docks and using them for bait either live or chunked. The chunked bait can often be used more than once for nice seabass; however, the red snapper thinks it’s a Christmas cookie and will devour it in seconds. Triggerfish took the squid over everything else so that’s something to consider.
(What to Expect)
You have probably already noticed, but I’m changing the format of this write-up to more of a report/forecast. Please keep in mind, there’s only a slightly better chance to predict fishing than there is weather, so try not to wake me too hard if you drive by me on the water and things aren’t going as planned I take into account current trends/reports and my logs over the years and put together an educated guess as to what the expectations should be.
Water temps will continue to decrease but at a slower rate than in the past because of unseasonal warmth but I have noticed the clarity getting much better. Fishing activity should continue to be steady for at least another 3 weeks with the best bite occurring at the last hour and a half of an outgoing tide and the first hour of the incoming. So does this mean you can only fish for two and half hours? Absolutely not! It’s amazing how many locations will have current appearing as an outgoing on the middle of an incoming tide (eddies, etc.). This is when it pays to do your homework and find these spots during different stages of the tides. I’ve spent several 8 hour days on the water catching fish and moving based on current variations and always look for oysters, docks, and rocks causing a disturbance or break in the current. Another thing to consider is that the colder the water gets, it’s best to fish a little deeper or wait until the sun has warmed a mud flat area and fish then.
You can expect sheepshead to continue to improve with not only size, but quantity, along with the black drum. Top bait for sheepshead will be quartered blue crab, fiddler crab, & shrimp, but they may get a little finicky as the water temps drop and favor clams or peeled shrimp. Black drum will take shrimp, alive or dead, on jigs or Carolina rigs but I’ve had better luck on Carolinas recently. Captain Steve Crowder posted a great report on the ringtail porgy, so I won’t go into that. Redfish, slot and oversized, will be around throughout the winter and techniques to fish them will change with water temps.
The best days to fish, in my opinion, are going to be December 26th – 31st, January 4th – 6th, 11th – 14th, & 26th – 29th.