What a difference a day makes. In the 80’s one day and the next day record low temperatures. Such a change can have a definite effect on the fishing. Fish seem to get lockjaw when the barometric pressure changes. It usually takes a couple of days of warmer weather to get them back on a normal feeding pattern. The outlook for this weekend has temperatures back in the 70’s and 80’s for daytime highs so get out and wet a line.
With the cooler air temperatures, daylight savings time and falling water temps will put fish into their fall patterns. Trout will start retreating to deeper water, schools of redfish should begin to appear on the flats, flounder will become active around Matanzas inlet and the snook bite will begin to slow with the falling water temps.
The cooler water temps will also effect offshore fishing as well. Sailfish and marlin will be migrating south. Sails can sometimes be found as close in as 10 miles at local area wrecks and reefs. Grouper and red snapper will also start moving in to these areas. I had a report of sails and wahoo 70 miles out last weekend. Just be careful if you venture out this time of year, seas can get pretty rough.
Last week Russ Saboe and John Inman fished the ICW with me. The day started off slow without a touch on topwater plugs. Things didn’t improve any when I switched them over to mirrolures. Things began to improve once I changed them over to live shrimp and moved to where we had an out going tide. They landed a couple of blackdrum, a few trout and two snook. The snook were 22 and 24 inches. Russ caught the most beat up snook I’ve ever seen. This fish was obviously in the clutches of a dolphin at one time. To look at it you had to wonder how it ever survived but it did.
I caught my biggest fish on a fly last week, a 6 ¾ lb trout. The fish swirled on my bubblehead fly as I striped it in. I picked up my line and cast out the fly again and the fish swirled on it once. The third cast proved to be the one as the fish swiped at it two times and ate on the third attempt. After a short battle the fish was landed photographed and released. One advantage to flyfishing is being able to cast without retrieving your lure all the way back to the boat. If a fish strikes and misses you have the ability to put that fly back in the same spot in a matter of seconds, usually resulting in a hookup.