Fishing Report October 2015
Capt. Rick Davidson, Editor (grassflats2@yahoo.com)
Sea Hag October Report
Now THAT’S what I’m talking about. Fishing has been on fire this month. After a slow summer the fish have exploded onto the flats and nearshore areas. This is one of the best fall fishing seasons I’ve seen in my 15 years of fishing Steinhatchee. With the whitebait migration, we’ve had tons of Spanish mackerel, and kingfish in great quantities. The offshore grouper fishing has been great, and redfish and trout are hungry and covering the flats. And we even had some excellent flounder and pompano taken to the tables. In spite of a somewhat windy month all told, you can tell by the pictures that the fish are there for the taking. We had a great time at the Nuts &Bolts of Fishing Fish’n Fest, and there were several businesses that came down and hired lots of guides for several days of fishing, and nobody went home unhappy. Here are some examples….
Fishing forecast for November
This should be another great month. Baitfish will continue to flood our area. Trout are being found almost everywhere, but look for mixed areas of grass and sand in 3 to 4 foot depths. Areas west of Dallus Creek, near the Bird Rack, the Doghead area to the north, and the flats between Rocky Creek and Sink Creek are great places to try. Many are scoring with Gulp shrimp fished on jigs beneath Cajun Thunder or popping corks. Suspending plugs such as the Live Target Spanish Sardine, Mirrolure Mirrodines XL, and Paul Brown Lures have all been taking nice trout and redfish in waters less than five feet in depth, and on less windy days, now is a great time to throw topwater plugs in the shallows nearshore. This is one of the few times of the year that you may even want to target flounder along with your trout fishing by fishing jigs along the bottom in sandy areas. Flounder can be tough to get into the boat….they will hang onto a Gulp lure all the way to the boat without actually being hooked so make sure you’ve got them by giving them time to actually eat the jig. Fish very slowly moving a jig along the bottom, especially in and around creek mouths. Moving off a little further out, to the nearshore bars such as Little Bank, look for bait pods and expect to find everything there…..trout, mackerel, kingfish, cobia….and sometimes even schools of bull redfish. Offshore, gag grouper are still the target of choice and fishing both dead baits (squid or sardines) on the bottom, or trolling over live bottom with lipped diving plugs will produce some excellent fish. And there are lots of kingfish out there as well. Near the end of the month, if we get some severe cold fronts, slow down your presentation no matter what you are fishing with. This is really a great time to get out there and fish. Rent one of our rental boats and we’ll put you on some fish, or contact one of our guides to get some local knowledge. You’ll catch fish this month….I guarantee it.
Captain Steve Rassel 352-359-5903 www.lastcastras.com
Fishing on the flats was red hot in October and it continues into November. Lots of trout in the 14 to 16 inch range with a few in the gator trout range. Redfish action is red-hot going either direction from the river. There are still some small sand trout in the deeper holes and Spanish around the sand bars. Let’s go fishing!
Captain Scott Peters, Jr 352-356-7502 www.badtothebonefishingcharters.com/
