goliath grouper

I’m always happy to catch any species of grouper in the backwaters. This goliath ate a four inch Z-Man diesel minnowz cast near the mangrove roots.

I’ve been hiding from the heat since the end of June. While I realize it’s now the peak of the summer’s heat I simply must get back out there and see what’s happening in real time and through my own experiences. To that end, my wife (Kim) and I made it out twice this past week to scout a couple of favorite areas.

I’m happy to report a sparse and scattered, yet widespread resurgence of seagrass in the waters north of town. I’m hearing reports of the same in the waters south of the inlet as well. East and west shorelines out to roughly four feet of water depth are growing enough grass that small mats of shed leaves are floating about. Even my wife commented how nice it is to have to shake it off the hooks of our lures; we thought we might never see this again in our lifetime!

Fishing wise, the bite was so-so on the two mornings Kim and I made it out. We tossed topwater plugs along the mangroves at first light and had a few blow-ups. Kim managed one under slot snook that first missed my walking plug and then smashed her old and beaten Mirrorlure floater!

Once the sun got high enough to lose most of our shadowed shoreline we switched to four inch Z-Man Diezel Minnowz and caught trout, snapper, goliath grouper, jacks and a bluefish. We targeted shorelines holding schools of mature silver mullet. Other than an occasional big jack smashing them the only thing I saw snooping around the mullet were bull sharks.

Inlet fishing has been good for boaters and jetty anglers. Live bait like pilchards and pinfish are taking plenty of snook with live shrimp doing almost as well. Cut shrimp is accounting for plenty of sand perch and other small and tasty critters for those who like to work less and catch more eatin’ fish!