This week I signed up for the Central Florida Shootout Tournament aiming for the inshore categories. I started off at 9pm fishing some residential dock lights / snook lights. I find these to be very hit or miss. For every 5 with catfish on them, one will have trout, reds, snook, tarpon, and snapper on them. It’s funny how the catfish won’t mess with the lights with the predator fish on them, even if there are two lights close together. I ended up catching a nice tarpon, redfish, a couple small trout, and a nice mangrove snapper all sight fishing off the sights using artificial. The best bait I found to use is a gulp shrimp rigged weedless. It’s important to try to throw weedless baits for a few reasons; you won’t snag/break the expensive snook light, snagged on a dock or mangrove is you miss (casting in the dark can be hilarious at times), and you can skip nicely into the tight spaces, where people hide their lights.

The next morning we woke up at 5am. I went to a few locations that I have been scouting out and seeing nice sized reds, trout, and snook. As soon as the first light started to show my dad and I hooked up on two nice reds. Both were right around 24inches and 4 to 4.5lbs. Action slowed down quickly as I think the rest of the fish were spooked from the fight. We made a quick move and I found another nice red. This one looked super angry, head butted me a couple times at the weigh in, she was 26 inches on the dot and weighed 6.5 lbs. I moved some nearby flats that I saw mullet being busted up on. I found a pair of snook, a few more reds and trout, but only could get a trout to bite. It ended up only being 19 inches at 2.4lbs. I knew it wouldn’t last on the board long but I ended up bringing a redfish and a trout into the weigh in.

I was stoked to have an awesome day of fishing on tournament day because the last few weeks have been windy and tough fishing conditions. The weather ended up being really nice on the inshore side. The redfish was in 1st place all day at the Port Canaveral weigh station and the trout was 3rd. When they combined the results with the south weight in at Sebatian, the redfish finished 2nd, and the trout was off the board. I expected that for the trout, they catch some monster down south! Overall really excited to get on the board!

The video I have this week is more of a bits n pieces of catches throughout the week. Its sight fishing multiple inshore species either on the flats during the day, or off fish lights at night. Unfortunately none of the redfish I caught during the tournament made the cut, I was too focused on fishing to get any great captures.

Until next time, tight lines!
Spanky