I hope everyone had a great and safe 4th of July and you got to enjoy the fireworks at the Flagler pier. The pier, having been closed for a couple of days due to the fireworks, is back to fishing as usual and is producing some good catches of flounder. Bluefish and whiting are both being caught from the pier and the surf. The blues are taking whole mullet and chunks of mullet. Whiting are taking shrimp, sand fleas and fish bites. As of now the beach and ocean is loaded with sargasum weed making the fishing a little difficult. The weed has been brought in by the easterly winds we’ve been having.
Now for some good news for live baiters. Live shrimp is once again starting to appear at bait shops on a regular basis. The first couple batches were on the small side but the size seems to be increasing with every batch that comes in. Lets hope this scenario continues.
On the ICW side it’s trout, snook, redfish, flounder, mangrove snapper, jacks and ladyfish. All can be caught live lining shrimp, mullet or mud minnows. In three trips last week a total of eight snook were brought to the boat with the largest weighing 4 ½ lbs. Also had some nice flounder healthy flounder. One had a half devoured pinfish in it’s throat but still ate the large shrimp we had out there. I also had a party out from New Mexico and one of the guys hooked into a tarpon that went about 15 lbs but it was lost at the side of the boat.
Dave Strickler , his daughter Christine and son Trey fished with me last week and they caught all of the above mentioned fish. Trey had a 4 lb snook and his sister had a 4 ½ lb snook. Both were the biggest fish they ever caught. The family also got to have a close encounter with a manatee. We were fishing a canal in Flagler Beach when the large mammal came right next to the boat. It was an experience of a lifetime for the family from western North Carolina. In all I must have seen 30 manatee in four days of fishing last week so please be aware that they are around when you are out boating.
Capt. Ralph Olivett has been scoring regularly on reds up around Matanzas inlet. Ralph has been using live mullet and scored eight slot size fish in one trip. Capt Chris Herrera is tossing topwater chuggers at aadaybreak for trout in the 6 to 7 lb range. Chris says to fish the grass banks.
Roy Mattson at Roy’s Bait Shop reports that Joe Lacone and his grandson fished the pier for 20 flounder. J Robertson – 7 flounder, 12 whiting and 3 blues. Dave Holloway – 9 blues on frozen mullet. Mike Adkins – lots of whiting from the surf. Roy also reported that someone had dumped 40 flounder that had been gigged at the route 100 boat ramp . What a waste of a resource. I told Roy that if he read the FWC’s report every week he would get sick at he number of people getting caught with illegal fish and that doesn’t include the one that aren’t caught.a