Last month was pretty good, not the busiest month for business but we had some great catches and fun times. We haven't had any consistent good weather for who knows how long. It's pretty much been all over the place, leaving us fishermen to figure it out. Windy, rainy, and cold is what's been going on for the last few weeks but the fish were still biting. We ended the month off with some great catches of tilapia, black drum, sheepshead, giant bluefish, big seatrout, and snook.
We kick off February with the opening of snook season which started Feb 1st and runs all the way until June 1st. The first day of snook season was some tough fishing for sure. Unforgiving chilly wind and very rough seas for fishing the inlet. We managed to get us a bell ringer snook but unfortunately it came up just a bit short to put in the box. I'll put that bad luck on the guy who brought bananas on the boat that day. The second and third day of snook season, no problem, we got to put some tasty fat slot snook on the ice, along with a variety of other species of black drum, lane snapper, bluefish, spanish mackerel, weakfish, and jack crevalles. The last couple of days were nice enough to get out to the nearshore reefs which produced quite a number of catches. I have never before seen so many weakfish caught in a single trip. We literally had no more room left in the cooler to put anything else in it. The snook bite has been off an on though. They've been being a little picky as usual but switching back and forth from pigfish, to croakers, then to threadfin herring. There's been another big plunge of jumbo shrimp being caught with cast nets in the river this year, so if history repeats itself those snook will soon be munching down on live shrimp as the shrimp start flowing out of the inlet. When the winds are blowing to bad to fish anywhere else we've been finding some hiding spots in the river back in Honest John's catching black drum, sheepshead, and spotted seatrout. Another good place has been Sebastian River where there's been some monster 30 plus lb jack crevalle and juvenile tarpon. As long as there's not a lot of fresh water being spilled in from the St John's River, Sebastian River is a hot fishing area.
Bowfishing trips have been picking up pretty good lately. We've recently found some new spots that are loaded with monster tilapia. I think people are starting to find out how much fun it actually is. It's quite difficult at first to get the hang of shooting at a moving target in the water but once you get it dialed in, game on!!! Night trips are the most productive but day trips are still awesome, just gotta pray for sunny days with no overcast.