June is always excellent in the nearshore and offshore waters out of Port Canaveral. We have been seeing shifty thermocline conditions, so don’t count on bottom fishing. The best bet right now is a live pogy or threadfin on a stinger rig over 8A and Pelican. You can also find the kings on shoal ledges, and shallow wrecks.
Threadfins can be easily caught on a sabiki rig on the buoys. If you can throw a 10-12ft cast net with more than 1.5lbs of lead per foot consistently perfect, you’ll have a chance at pogies. Pogy populations are at an all time low right now because of last year’s red tide, the demand for fish oil pills, and dredging/cruise ship pollution.
Slow troll or freeline those baits live on a stinger rig and you’ll rarely be skunked. King mackerel of 6-15lbs will becaught on the reef. If the water stays blue, dolphin, football sized blackfins, and sailfish are possible. Keep those cobia jigs and frozen squid ready because a cobia might swim up to the boat. Smoker kings up to 50+ pounds are possible too, primarily in 30-50ft. I tie my own stinger rigs using
Bottom fishing has been literally cooling off lately. Cobia will get really good soon at least. The thermocline will likely become significant and make bottom fishing very poor later this month and towards red snapper season. The clowns at NMFS always know to have a season during foul weather or dumpwelling conditions. They need to listen to anglers and allow one per person year around. That would make grouper fishing great again.
Tarpon, big jacks, and bonito have been broadly scattered off the beach across north and central Brevard. If the scaled sardine pods near Melbourne Beach move up this way, it will be tarpon time. We got lucky and had a few hits north of the Cape last week. I’d use heavy spinning gear with 80-100lb leader and live bait or topwater plugs. Due to the exceptional clarity except near the Port, you may have to go lighter than I recommend to get a bite.
Snook have been chewing under all mangrove trees on natural shorelines of all three lagoons. They’re all fun, but the ones in north Brevard are smaller than the south county snook. Light spinning gear is the most fun, but bring heavier gear in case you keep getting broken off. Even a 30 inch snook can snap 20lb leader. Live shrimp, mullet, croaker, or even sandperch are great natural baits. Lures and flies mimicking the area’s baitfish will get hit if they’re hungry. Tarpon are showing up strong in the canals and backwaters across most the lagoon. Really small baits or flies are the way to go, but live mullet works great at night.
With very hot water temperatures, dangerously low dissolved oxygen levels, and ongoing brown tide blooms, (Mainly in the north BRL and Sykes) please handle with extra care. Practice catch and release, keep the fish in the water as much as possible, avoid treble hooks, don’t target bull reds or gator trout in light brown water, and do everything you can to minimize impact to our lost paradise. Do you really want to eat fish full of rocket fuel that could melt you into a liquid and cancerous fire retardant?
I’ll continue to do limited Lagoon reports for now as long as I don’t have too many issues with other anglers or even worse water quality.
Well done Kurt!