Slow moving tides coupled with westerly winds have made for some difficult fishing this past week. As I’ve stated before, fish prefer faster moving water. It makes the bait more active and thus the fish feed more. The westerly winds have pushed a lot of water out of the flats and the ICW making for low high tides and low low tides. When this happens the fish seem to migrate to the deeper water of the ICW and any deeper holes in the backwater. Try fishing the deeper waters to find fish.
The cold front that past through this week didn’t help things either. An approaching cold front will usually trigger the fish to feed heavily, but that didn’t seem to happen this time. Lou De Fazio and I headed out on Sunday to fiash the front but had difficulty finding a steady bite. We started by fly fishing for some trout. Lou used a heavier weighted fly and was able to get his fly down deeper to where the fish seemed to be holding Lou had a couple of trout, a jack and a snook. I on the other hand used a lighter fly that stayed nearer to the surface and had no luck but I did have a few fish come up and look at the fly.
We then worked our way into the backwater through some deeper cuts to try and find some reds. The water was real low and we tried throwing some jigs around oyster bars but couldn’t raise a fish. Having no luck in the backwaters we moved out and headed to Silver Lake thinking there might be some reds there. We cruised the whole lake and couldn’t connect with a redfish. We did however spook some reds holding up in the middle of the lake. To the north the skies looked nasty and we could hear thunder so we decided to call it a day.
I don’t see the fishing starting to improve until we have a change of wind direction to the east or northeast to push some water back inshore. As the moon approaches full it should also help to raise the water levels due to its gravitational pull.
One thing the colder weather will do is cool the water temperature down a few degrees. Hopefully this will bring the redfish up to school on the flats. As the day progresses and the shallow water warms they’ll come into the fats to warm themselves and look for food. This is when redfishing can get really good.
Johnny Garrett at Flagler Beach Bait and Tackle says the action from the pier has been slow but whiting are providing the bulk of the action. They are being caught on sand fleas and shrimp.
After this week anyone looking for a local fishing report can go to my website, www.flaglerfishingcharters.com, and click on articles for up to date information on the areas fishing.