big seatrout

Tony’s fourth cast with his bone colored Skitterwalk fooled a 20 inch trout. A few minutes later it fooled this 22 inch trout too!

Wind be damned! I decided to take my regulars fishing when they asked. I even decided to book a couple of new clients that were willing to risk getting skunked because of wind direction and velocities forcing me to hind in areas I wouldn’t have chosen to fish.

All in all, it was a good decision for my bank account and for the anglers involved. While we didn’t exactly crush the fish every trip we did catch enough numbers and variety to keep everyone happy!

One of the traits of our fishery in Fort Pierce is the mangrove jungle lying north of the inlet on the east side of the river. It’s expansive enough several boats can spread out and have plenty of fishing room without interfering with other anglers. What’s more, the area is inherently fishy.

Working top water plugs along mangrove shorelines resulted in many quality spotted seatrout and quite a few snook. Most of the snook were juveniles, though we briefly battled a couple in or above the slot, only to have the plugs thrown back at us.

Once the top water bite subsided we tossed Z-Man Minnowz (three inch) and four and five inch Diezel Minnowz with good success. The snook ate these very well as did the jacks and ladyfish.

For the live bait crowd, greenies, pilchards, fingerling mullet and pinfish are taking a few snook and big jacks while drifting in the inlet. If you haven’t been to the Fort Pierce Inlet recently please be advised they’re dredging offshore and hauling the sand back to the jetty where it’s being pumped onto the beach as re-nourishment.