cape canaveral tripletail

I hope everyone had a great holiday season and a safe New Year. The last few weeks have been great nearshore and the good fishing should continue for a little bit till the weather gets colder and chills the water off.

Cobia and tripletail have been hanging pretty close to the beach. For triple tail, I like to use a small bucktail tipped with a piece of squid or a live shrimp with just a small shot of weight on it. Tease them with it a little, and most of the time, they will eat it. Tripletail make some of the best eating around. You will find them free swimming and holding to pieces of weeds and anything else you can find floating. Cobia have been hanging out in the same areas as the triples, so have the bucktail with squid ready. There are many things you can use for them. If they’re hungry, then they will eat, so to speak. A bucktail from Handler Fishing Supply tipped with a whole squid has been the best for me.

Pushing a little farther out, Pelican and 8A have had some decent kings on them. I have been using many different baits since live bait is a little hard to find this time of year. Have your dead sardines handy in case you’re struggling to locate the live ones. If you can’t find any bunker, try sabikying some of the buoys or wrecks on the way out for some blue runners or threadfins. Live bait will definitely perform better, if you can find it.

Pushing a little farther offshore, the Mahi, wahoo and sails have been doing much better. Although there’s specific tactics and ways to target each specifically, I use smaller Islander lures with small ballyhoo. For Wahoo, I just up the troll speed a little bit. All three species can be expected this time of year and should be out there in good numbers right now.

Keep things simple. Remember, we catch more wahoo and mahi while king fishing than actually targeting them directly.