It’s gator time! This time of the year is one of my favorites! I tend to change things up a bit and switch gears from playing in the salt to playing in the swamp. Gator hunting is like fishing on steroids! From August through November, we are allowed to harvest two alligators (with proper tags) which you typically apply for in May. During this process, you typically enter the zone in which you would like to hunt. I personally choose areas I am familiar with, which is Lake Pointsett and Stick Marsh. Once you apply, there is a random drawing, and, if chosen, you’ll get an email approval and shortly after a paper with your tags in the mail.

8A and Pelican. That’s what you need to know for the week. As of lately, it has been one, or the other — or both. Honestly, it’s just the luck of the draw. Kings, Mahi, and Sails are all in full force.

This rain has caused high waters in the drainage canals and the dams in the Sebastian River and Turkey Creek, putting a lot of fresh water into the lagoon and inlet, along with the nearshore reefs. The water is black and it looks like we are fishing the St Johns River just outside the inlet on outgoing tide.

The near-shore tarpon and shark action out of Canaveral is still on fire this week. Capt. Justin and I have been putting multiple fish in the air and bringing quite a few to the boat with our customers over the past seven days. This activity should continue and even get better as we move into the first part of September and we start to see a larger version of the “mini” mullet run that we saw along this section of coastline over the past week.

The Pompano bite is still going strong in the lagoon. In the canals around Indian Harbour and Satellite Beach, live shrimp have been producing lots of action, including small tarpon, snook, and redfish. Moving offshore, the mangroves and muttons are starting to bite out of Port Canaveral. On the beach, fishermen are catching small whiting and margate, and are also reporting a good number of Tarpon hookups.

I was out several trips this week and fish activity was actually pretty good, even with the full-moon influence.

This week, the fishing turned back to the August we all know. Plenty of fishing opportunities within our nearshore and offshore waters. Looking through my past catches, it’s clear that August is slower than May, June, September, and October.

Hit the surf yesterday about a mile north of Sebastian. NOTHING. Nobody was getting literally anything. Big snook cruising but no hits. Water was crystal clear and weed free.

My attempt at up to the minute reporting on seaweed conditions, which would save a fisherman/woman the time to find out for themselves, is being edited out. So be it. Time to find another site.

It’s been another exciting week here on the Space Coast! The fishing has been about as good as it gets, in my opinion. The lagoon has been producing great numbers of redfish, trout, snook and tarpon of all various sizes, even some real trophies. However, my main focus has been nearshore.

I was out yesterday, 8/14/19 fishing from the beach and the seaweed was the thickest seen yet.

The kingfish bite just keeps getting better and better out of Sebastian Inlet. Two weeks ago the bite was hot, but this past week it’s been straight up explosive! These fish seem to be on every rock and every piece of structure that you can imagine, all the way out to 100 feet. Bait hasn’t really seemed to matter, either. They are destroying lives almost instantly. For the bigger kings, an 8-10″ slow-trolled live mullet has been hard to beat.