Right now the ICW is loaded with bait and the mullet run hasn’t hit its peak yet. I suspect that will happen in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime this is a great time to get out and wet a line. At any given time of day it is not unusual to see schools of bait being blasted out of the water by predator fish. Most of the bait schools consist of menhaden, mullet and glass minnows. There are small and large jacks, big ladyfish, redfish, trout and flounder all feeding on migrating bait.


You have to be quick with casting in order to hook up with some of these fish. You’ll see them bust bait and by the time you cast to them they are gone. The thing to do when you see them bust bait is to try and figure which direction they are headed and cast out in front of them. It really doesn’t matter much what you throw at them because when they are feeding like that they will eat almost anything. Live shrimp, live mullet, jigs rigged with soft plastics and hard plastic lures will all work when thrown at blitzing fish.

Last week I got a call from Steve Carl telling me that he and his dad Phil worked the banks of the ICW and landed 17 flounder. They kept 7 of the largest fish with the biggest topping out at just over 5 lbs.

Taking in the information relayed to me by Steve I headed out with a charter the following day and we targeted the shallows of the ICW for flounder. Matt Hallas (Chicago) and Jacques Benchimol (Palm Coast) landed 5 flounder with the two largest weighing in at 4 3/4 lbs. They also had 2 reds at 18” and 19”, a couple of jacks, a ladyfish and a few trout.

When working the shorelines for flounder there are certain things I like to look for. One of the main things is shallow water that goes from the channel drop off and extends to the shoreline. I use a 5” Berkley Gulp jerk shad rigged on a 1/8 oz weighted 5/0 worm hook. I’ll cast my bait as close to the bank as I can then begin working it back to the boat. I like to drag it slowly across the bottom and twitching it softly as I retrieve it. A small bait stealer will feel like a fast pecking on the bait and a flounder will feel like a tap-tap and then bite. When you feel that tap-tap point your rod at the fish and give him some slack so it’ll eat the bait When you learn the difference between the pecking and the tap-tap your catch ratio is sure to increase.

Last week I decided to fish a place I haven’t fished in a while, the Tamoka Basin. I set out from the Highbridge boat ramp just before dawn to catch the early bite. I got into the basin and began to fly cast up toward the bank. After working along the bank for about an hour and having no success I motored toward a different area and what I found was a complete joy to me; snook and plenty of them. I came upon a creek mouth where the fish were blasting bait out of the water and on my first cast I landed a snook of about 15”. My 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th casts produced the same thing. I thought to myself “ this is going to be a wonderful day”.


As I was catching these smaller fish every so often you would see a big one bust bait. I put down the fly rod and picked up a spinning rod equipped with a 17MR Mirrolure and cast to a spot where a larger fish was chasing bait. After the lure hit the water I let it set for a couple of seconds then started to work the lure. On the second twitch it got slammed and the fish started pulling line off the reel. I knew when that happened that I had a good size snook on. After putting on a few good jumps I boated the fish, photographed and measured it (26”) and released it.

When I finally left the Basin my total fish for the day was 15 snook, 3 trout, 2 flounder and a redfish. By the way the flounder were also caught on the Mirrolure and they were 14” and 19”.

I returned to the same spot 2 days later and landed another 6 snook. The day after that I returned once again but found the fish not to be as cooperative as they were the day before. I was however able to land 4 more snook and a redfish.

After that second day of fishing I was running back to the boat ramp up the ICW when out of nowhere, about 25 ft. in front of my boat, a tarpon weighing about 150 lbs sky rocketed out of the water. With no time to react I thought the fish was going to land in my boat. Luckily for me the big fish reentered the water about 5 ft. in front of the boat. I had to stop the boat to catch my breath and ponder what would have happened if it did land in the boat. Who says fishing is not a dangerous sport?