The bite the last few weeks has been nothing short of phenomenal! From big tarpon in the river and the ocean to snook fishing and bull redfish on the flats, the possibilities have been endless.

What a great week we had. The winds are non-existent and the bunkers are plentiful. Hot is the word of the week, though. Is it me or has it just been brutal? To our guests, please hydrate the day prior and day of. Lay off alcohol and coffee. It’s HOT.

Picking back up with the Eau Gallie River today. There is only one public launch area at Ballard Park which I detailed last week, so if you want to know more, go check out Part I….

I’ve been out of town (went to Colorado to take my granddaughter back home) and only fished a couple days this week. Last Friday we fished Stick Marsh and caught lots of quality fish. The biggest was 6lbs but we lost a huge fish on a Reaction Innovations Skinny Dipper (Sprayed Grass) weightless.

The near coastal waters are full of great fighting species for this week’s fishing report. Snook are schooling along the beaches and when you find a group of them you are sure to get into some great rod-bending action. I’ve been netting pogies to use for bait all week.

It’s Hot! I might add — and it’s not the fishing, either. I spent last week fishing a one saltwater and one freshwater outing with a combined total of 7 hours on the water. We start at 6am and finish up around 9:30. Our first outing was on the Lagoon, we worked the mangroves on the east side of the river first throwing topwaters.

It seems as though we are in the dog days of summer here in the Central FL area with heat index’s in the 100’s this past week. Although temps have been hot it has not effected the fish as they have been chewing well. It has definitely been a morning bite throughout Mosquito Lagoon targeting trout and redfish in the shallows before the water heats up in the afternoon.

Currently our surf fishing charters are catching whiting, pompano, catfish, blacktip sharks and jack crevalle with the occasional snook in the mix. The red slime that’s plagued our central east coast region stretches from Fort Pierce to Cape Canaveral. This has definitely been the biggest factor impacting success of surf fishing anglers along the Space Coast. While many are deterred to battle with the slime there are fish available to catch for those determined few.

It’s time to play tug of war with the beach donkeys! Cold water upwellings this week are moving fish all around the Space Coast near shore waters. Shark, Jack, tarpon, kingfish and Cobia are all possible catches for anglers right now. I’ve been slow trolling with live pogies to get these various fish to eat.

The cold water upwelling has hit the beaches to the north and water temp has dropped 6-8 degrees. We are still finding some jacks, tarpon and sharks on the beach but not in big numbers. Inlet has some snook and redfish along with jacks with live bait the key. We are finding some snook and trout in the lagoon in decent numbers and some bait, as well.

We started back to school (pre-planning)l this week as teachers so getting back into the routine I was more limited in my fishing, since I was limited I decided to stick close to home and fish the Eau Gallie River, since I live 3 miles from Ballard Park. I consider the Eau Gallie River to be my “home waters” since it’s the closest bigger body of water to my house, which we moved into in January.

Trout fishing has been very good lately with some really nice trout coming on either pigfish or croakers worked on the edge of the bars. The tarpon bite continues to be very good inshore. The beach tarpon fishing has slowed down a little bit with a cold water upwelling but should turn back on as the water temperature warms. Offshore, amberjack have been eating very well and if you’re lucky you might have a cobia come up on the reef.