WEEKLY FORECAST

Capt Zach on the Underfire placing in 2nd and 3rd with twin ajs on today’s tournament. Fun times!

First off, let’s give a huge congrats to Captain Zach for placing 2nd and 3rd with the local tournament this week. He placed with matching AJs. Way to go Capt. Zach of the Under Fire!

This week wasn’t as good as last week at all. We went for 3 or 4 days with hardly a bite. Only thing we can think of was the full moon. It brought in a pile of scattered weeds and shut the ocean down. It’s definitely coming back each day, though. For what it’s worth, the bottom fishing has been better than trolling.

Bait. The bunker disappeared as well. You gotta look but it’s around and you’ll want to grab some. Again, do not leave home without the frozen sardines or minnows. Tip the frozen with duster skirts.

Great trip with Cap Zach today. Plenty of fish to stay happy:)

Reef fishing. I’d love to say go get your bunka and go straight to the reef but not this week. It is slowly improving each day so by the time you see this it may be back to firing. You will be shagging though! No joke, it’s that bad!

The Deep. Grouper and AJs are about the only thing eating the last few days consistently. Many of the wrecks are producing the bite. It was a little better than the northern 27 grounds.

Seas Fire with a nice bull Mahi.

MAUI. Was a terrible week for them. The Canaveral Mahi run is gone. Or maybe we will get 1 more wave. Either way, who cares. “Bring on the Kings,” as my good friend Wiggy says.

Clermont firefighters doing what they do on the Seas Fire.

Sharking. Capt Zach and Capt Arron have not done so well this week either. When I say the ocean shut down…That’s what I mean. Let’s just hope the moon effects are gone.

The offshore bite West of Tampa Bay has been great. The red grouper have been very active on live pinfish with the best chance for the larger fish in at least 75′ of water. Mangrove, lane and Vermillion snapper have also been found in large numbers on hard bottom coming off shrimp or cut threadfins.

I fished both nearshore and offshore this week. The dolphin bite has been the best we’ve seen in a few years, for sure. The winds and late fronts have kept the fish around for the last few weeks. The snapper and Cobia bite has been good, as well, for sure. Closer to shore, there’s been some good action with jacks, mackerel, and plenty of sharks.

Meanwhile, the inshore bite has been just okay. Not great but there have been some good fish around. For best luck, stick with live bait. Similarly, the inlet bite has been pretty hit or miss. Jacks are plentiful, but the snook and red bite has not been consistent.

May is all about having options. With any luck our 4 month stretch of rough seas will subside and we will be able to enjoy everything May has to offer.

Go blue water trolling. This is the best time of year to do it and it is one of the few styles of fishing we have left where the sharks don’t eat just about everything you hook. If you want to take the laid back approach just go until you find blue water and deploy your trolling spread and let the auto pilot take you East. Put a lot of variety in your spread by using small feathers for black fin tuna, small ballyhoo for mahi and sailfish and big skirted wire rigged ballyhoo or strip baits for wahoo. Make your presence big with teasers and get creative on how to get them outside of your wash. If you want to take the more aggressive approach then run and gun until you find a nice edge of some kind or a area with a lot of flying fish. This requires burning a lot of fuel and at these prices the laid back approach might be the better way to lean.

Yellowfin Tuna trips to the backside of the Stream will be on fire. These fish might be closer than most people think so be sure to key into water temp and all visual cues. Nothing worst than going 20 to 40 miles further than you have to.

A lot of people get excited for bottom fishing in May. I use to love bottom fishing and it was definitely my passion for many years. Can’t say I’m too excited about knowing I have to go bottom fishing these days. Everyone’s mindset and expectations have to be in the right place for it to be fun. Red snapper are just about all you can catch these days and when you do hook a grouper and actually get it coming it usually gets ate by a shark. The same goes for amberjack and it’s just heartbreaking knowing these fish are just being wasted. I really enjoy fishing for vermillion snapper, trigger fish and other smaller species. I also suggest that people start focusing on smaller structure. The wrecks and big natural bottom is infested with sharks so the best bet is to fish smaller less known bottom.

Deep drop fishing for golden tile fish, yellowedge grouper and the 1 snowy grouper you can keep is excellent in May. Plus you might already be out there looking for mahi anyways. Pick a depth, and make 15 min drifts until you get bites. If you don’t get a bite in 15 minutes make a 20 ft jump in depth and try again. Usually it is a depth that produces when it comes to golden tile fish.

Live bait trolling for kings is also going to be great action but the taxes are going to be high. Sharks are brutal everywhere all the time but May is typically really bad. You have a good chance at pulling cobia off the sharks and if you are in tune with how a cobia fights you will need to throw your reel into free spool when you feel the fight change as the sharks try to eat him. Most of the time when you can get the cobia to swim to the surface you are in the clear.

May is a great month but the tax man will make you pay depending on what you do so try to stay positive and steer the course. Our fishery is out of whack and as captains it gets very discouraging especially on days the fishing is tough. Nothing worst than finding a few fish to save a tough trip and sharks eat them.

Marie with an unexpected dinner guest. The flounder greedily ate a Z-Man Diezel Minnowz cast near an oyster mound!

As we near the end of this segment of snook season, I’m happy to report the bite is still good! The top-water bite is steady for snook, jacks and an occasional gator trout in the backwater jungles north of town.

Most mornings the nod goes to walking plugs, especially when the surface is calm or nearly so. I’m typically tossing Tsunami walkers or Super Spook Jrs. If the water is a bit choppy at least one rod will be throwing a Z-Man Pop Shadz. The Pop Shadz is also my go-to surface plug for any angler who has difficulty “walking the dog” even on placid waters.

Marie and Joe joined me for a backwater trip recently. Once they knocked the dust off their rusty casting skills we settled in on the fishing part of the trip. Too many exciting blow-ups yielded no bent rods as is often the case with top-water fishing.

Eventually, success was had and Marie was well rewarded with a beautiful jungle snook and a fat flounder. Switching to a sub-surface lure helped greatly with getting the hook into a few lips this particular morning and a Z-Man four inch Diezel Minnowz rigged on a Z-Man Chinlockz hook was all she needed! The flounder was laid up near mangrove roots that butted up against a small mound of live oysters.

A few live oyster mounds remain in our area and even though I would not eat them, you can bet I’ll fish around them whenever I get the chance!

The snook bite is pretty good at the inlets this week. Live pogies, pilchards, greenies and majorra are the top live baits to try for them. Along the beaches, shark, tarpon, jack and king mackerel are striking slow trolled live baits. For the tarpon and jack, 60 to 80 pound test leaders and a VMC 7/0 circle hook work best. For the kings and sharks you will need to add a short piece of wire to this rig.

On a side note, my wife and I are vacationing in the Keys this week and the yellowtail snapper bite has been on fire leading into the recent full moon. We’ve limited out everyday on 15 to 20 inch fish. Next we’re going to try for bonefish and tarpon. We’ll see how that goes and report on it next week. While we are away, Captain Justin is holding down the fort and running charters each day. If you would like to get a trip with us please give him a call at 321-505-8217. Let’s go catch your next memory!

Water levels are way down on Garcia as I’m sitting in the water starting my day. Last night’s full moon should get the bluegill to start their spawning. Stick Marsh is fishing greatm, but an early start on the water will be the best opportunity for a fun topwater bite as the Shad are quite active.

Hit the beach on Saturday to see what’s happening in the surf. I’ve had poor luck lately finding sand fleas, so I decided to try the artificial Gulp variety. I wasn’t impressed, and neither were the fish. Any body else tried these with different results?

Fortunately, my tried-and-true fresh peeled shrimp tipped with Fishbites did the trick. Probably caught 3 or 4 pompano and a dozen whiting during falling tide. They all leaned small in size.

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FSFA Club member, Chris Pashos, really got into some fish this week! On Monday he boated a nice a scamp and gag grouper on some slow pitch jigging. Not to one-up the door mat he caught earlier this week. Nice fishing, Chris!