The Fall season has finally started and so has the fall mullet run. The mullet are up north near Cape Canaveral right now but will soon be in Sebastian. There are big schools in the lagoon showing up from Turkey Creek to Grant, FL as well. The mullet run is so much fun. It brings all the predators out which produces a lot of action for us anglers.
The inshore bite has been really good the last few weeks. We're catching lots of smaller snook and slot redfish fishing along the mangrove shorelines. We've also been fishing some docks and underwater ledges loading up with some nice medium size mangrove snapper when trying to get a bag of fillets. Most of the time I have my customers throw live bait and cut bait depending on their level of casting skill. You can easily lose a lot of lures fishing the mangroves if you don't know how to skip a bait. The lures I love to use this time of year are Slayer Inc. paddle tails with a 1/4oz jig head or the go to DOA shrimp. For top water I like to throw a Mirrolure Top Pup in the early mornings when it's glass flat.
Sebastian Inlet has been pretty busy lately with the opening of Snook Season on September 1st. It's not a secret fishing spot and everyone knows that's the easiest place to pull in a slot snook. Unfortunately if you want to catch fish at the inlet this time of year you have to be aggressive. Don't be a jerk but you gotta be aggressive. It's a never ending battle between the jetty fishermen and the boaters but try to give some respect to each other, we're all fishing there for the same reason. For those of you that don't know, snook have to be between 28" to 32" tip to tip in order to keep. I'll say this, the inlet is the only place that I know where the snook have a dinner menu. One day they want this bait the next day they want what you don't have. Now everyone loves catching snook for sure, but the fish that I look forward to this time of year are the big bull redfish and yes they are here. The bull reds are just a different type of fight. They pull and pull and just don't want to give up. We can't keep the big ones, they have a slot size between 18" and 27", but they're sure fun to battle with. Those big reds will be around up through February. Another prize fish that's being caught are cubera snapper. Cuberas are like a mangrove snapper on steriods. I haven't got one yet this month but I've seen a couple of the other guys get lucky pulling in a few nice ones.
As far as offshore goes the seas have been excellent and the fishing has been really good. The last few trips I've taken we've bottom fished all over from 60 ft out to 130 ft of water. We've been catching nice lane snapper, triggerfish, vermilion snapper, sea bass, sharks, almaco jacks, bonita, big kingfish, cobia, mutton snapper, and of course big red snapper. Live shrimp and greenies have been the ticket on the bottom for the snappers and freelining live grunts or chunks of sardines on top for the kings. For the cobia I'll say this, "bring in the sharks". If you bring in the big sharks the cobia will follow. For this upcoming week it seems the weather is going to put a damper on getting out. Looks like we've got big waves and howling winds from these tropical systems so probably gonna be doing a lot more river fishing this week.
In addition, the Vacation Rental House is now available for bookings so we now have you covered for your fishing adventure as well as your stay.