Let me start by making a correction about something I put in last weeks column. I wrote that there were flounder caught up to 35 inches, it was suppose to be flounder to 3.5 lbs. Sorry for the error. I caught some flack over that one including a few phone calls. It’s good to see that the readers are there to keep me on my toes.
Jake at Flagler Beach Bait and Tackle repots that trout are being caught at the pier in the early morning hours and that flounder up to 6 lbs are still being. Black drum, whiting and bluefish round out the rest of the fish being landed. Jake also reports his other shop, Highbridge Bait and Tackle, has reports of lots of snook coming from the Highbridge area along with good catches of gator size trout. Jake took some time to fish last week and had snook of 30 and 27 inches. He used a shad tail on a bucktail jig to land the fish.
When the possibility of running offshore presents itself there are reports of cobia and king mackerel being caught. Cobia, which can usually be found this time of year in the 30 ft. depth range, are being found further out in the 65 ft. depth range. It could be due to the rough water we’ve been having lately.
Last week Kevin and Julie Tobin fished the ICW with me. The fishing started out a little slow but came on strong near the end of the trip. They caught jacks, a bunch of trout in the 17’ range and a couple of undersized snook. The fish were caught on live shrimp and plugs. Kevin lost a couple of larger trout that he hooked up on a bomber plug.
Here’s a little story for those of you that don’t think there are alligators in the ICW. I know there are gators there because I have seen many of them, especially in the southern part of the county. In my 16 yrs. of fishing here I have never witnessed what I saw a couple of weeks ago. I had a charter out and we were at the end of a canal that is about a ¼ of a mile long and began working are way back to the mouth of the canal under the power of the trolling motor. At the mouth of the canal we could see some thrashing going on but just figured it was a manatee flopping around. As we got closer I stated it looked like a gator but than it disappeared. Moving closer to the mouth we saw this arched object sticking out of the water that looked like the loch ness monster. Upon closer inspection we found it to be the tail of a gator but it was not moving. I got right next to it with the boat but it never moved. It was standing almost straight up and down so I couldn’t see the body but by the size of its tail I’d say it was between 13 to 15’ long. I took my push pole and poked it to see if it was alive and the gator swooshed its tail and went under the water only to have the tail surface again a few seconds later. This went on for a half hour than the gator disappeared under the surface. We hung around for about a half hour longer but it never surfaced again. The only conclusion that we could come to was that when we saw the flopping around that the gator had captured some kind of prey on the canals bank and dragged it into the deeper water to drown it. You might want to think twice before jumping into the water to cool off or walk the banks to cast net mullet.

Photo: Alan Skyles with a 5 ½ lb trout he caught while live lining a shrimp.

I don’t know about you but I’ve about had it with this springs crazy weather. It’ll beautiful one day, a cold front and wind the next day. Let’s hope this all settles down so we can get to some serious fishing. Historically this is one of the best times of year to fish. Inshore, big snook start to show up along with gator trout and big jacks. Along the beaches flounder have one of their biggest runs of the year and the water temperature is just right for pompano with cobia not far behind. We’ll miss the cobia run if the wind keeps the surf riled up. With a little luck the fish gods will smile upon us and turn things around.
I’m getting reports from Roy’s Bait House that there are up to 50 flounder a day coming to the planks. Joe Locante has been limiting out daily with flounder up to 8 lbs. Al Spearman landed a five flounder and Alfredo Batone and his daughter 27 flounder up to 35 inches. Larry Finch has been fishing the clean water around Matanzas inlet for lots of pompano up to 5 lbs. and David Watson pulled 6 pompano, 3 blues and five flounder from the surf. Nathan Stark fished the ICW for 23” trout he caught on a topwater plug. Nathan was also kind enough to capture a brown pelican and remove some fishing tackle that it was wrapped up in. Steve Martin was able to slip offshore between fronts for a 24.09 lb red snapper.
Last Saturday Pete Arnold and Kevin Thompson fished aboard my boat for a ½ day charter. We started in the flats on the last of the incoming tide. I poled the guys around for about an hour and located 2 reds that were slamming mullet along the grass line. As fast as the fish appeared they fled even faster and all we could see were the fish pushing water as they fled the area. As the tide turned we left the flats and hit a feeder creek. It was there that they found trout, redfish, snook, flounder and jacks. After all was said and done Pete put 5 trout up to 19” in the box and landed his first ever snook that measured 25”.
There’s talk going on that the FWC wants to change the bag and size limits on snook. The bag limit on the east coast will be changed to match the bag limit on the west coast of 1 fish per day per angler and the slot limit to be changed from 27”-34” to 28”- 33”. They are also discussing putting a closed season on redfish. Once I hear something furthear I will let you know.
It’s still not to late to enter the Flagler County Sportfishing Clubs Bucket “o” Fun tournament next weekend. You can pick up an entry form at your local tackle store.


Photo: Pete Arnold displays the first snook he’s ever caught. The fish measured out at 25” and was caught live lining a shrimp.

It seems that pier and surf fishing has begun to pick up. Reports I’m getting are of good size catches of flounder and pompano. Flounder up to 8 lbs have been reported at the pier and pompano to 5 ½ lbs from the surf. Best baits for flounder would be live mullet, mud minnows or shrimp. For pompano try using fresh dead shrimp, sand fleas, fish bites or clams fished on a pompano rig, these rigs can be purchased at any tackle store. The weight you use on this rig should be determined by the surf conditions. The majority of pompano are caught between the edge of the surf and the sand bar that runs parallel to the beach. The sand bar will become more prevalent as the tide recedes.

It also looks as though the offshore fishing is beginning to pick up. Jim Ingham weighed in a 23.9 lb king mackerel at Roy’s Bait House. Look for cobia to start to appear along our beaches in the next couple of weeks. Find a manta ray and it will usually have cobia following it. Large bucktail jigs with a curly tail grub on it will do the trick here, just make sure you use some stout tackle as these fish can run up to 40 to 50 lbs and more.

Inshore there are snook at night under the bridges that are being caught on diving plugs and soft plastics. Plugs such as bomber long A’s, 52M mirrolures, yo-zuri crystal minnow and the rapala x-rap will all work on snook and trout. Soft plastic shad imitations like the tsunami swimming shad are working as are soft plastic shrimp imitations.

Trout continue to be a mystery to me this year, one day they’re here than the next day you can’t find but one or two small ones. How ever on Good Friday I finally found some gator trout. Sumner Bryant and Alan Skyles fished with me that day and their trout that weighed in at 6 ½ and 5 ½ lbs. Both fish were caught while live lining shrimp and both were photographed released unharmed. Three days later I had another party out and could only find a couple of small trout along with jacks, ladyfish, flounder and some small reds. Maybe if we can get a weather pattern that is normal for this time of year the trout bite will improve.

Washington Oaks State Park celebrates Earth Day the weekend of April 21^st and 22^nd. There will be live entertainment both days and live reptiles and an alligator from the Alligator Farm. A live butterfly enclosure will also be on hand along with special programs for children. For more information you can contact Cristy Leonard at (386) 446-6783.

Photo: Sumner Bryant shows off a 61/2 lb gator trout he caught while live lining a shrimp. The fish was released unharmed.