Spring Break is coming to a close and the fishing is just heating up. For the last two weeks the mainstay fish has been the BIG Sheepshead. This year’s season has been awesome! After fishing seven of the last ten days I am enjoying my day off to get a chance to catch up on some paper work and tackle repairs to get ready for the next ten day stretch. The Sheepshead are starting to thin out a little but there are still plenty hanging around Pensacola Pass to be caught.

The Speckled Trout are starting to be more dependable on the flats around the bay and in Santa Rosa Sound. I’ve been using mostly live shrimp to catch the fish but the artificial lures are catching a few fish along the way. One of my most popular artificial baits is Big Bite Baits, Bio Bait Jerk Shad.  These Specks are eating this bait up. I like to use Gamakatsu’s EWG worm hook with a split ring and swivel attached to it with a glass bead rattler slid into the front part of the bait to give it some weight and sound.  Twitch this rig close to a Speck and it is sure to get you lots of bites. I still rig the live shrimp free lined with a 12lb test fluorocarbon leader and a Gamakatsu #2 inline point circle hook. This rig dose all the work for you when the fish eats the shrimp the circle hook ends up in the corner of the fish’s mouth near 100% of the time.

The slot Red Fish are teaming on the flats in search of food. Nice size schools of fish are showing up in all the regular places in Santa Rosa Sound from the narrows in Ft. Walton all the way to Gulf Breeze. Sight fishing is the best way to catch these fish but you have to be on your toes, if you can’t see the fish far enough away to present the bait in a natural way or you’ll spook the fish. If sight casting is not your game then get a little distance from the shore line and cast gold spoons and the same Bio Bait Jerk Shad rig mentioned in the last paragraph. You will get your chance at landing your Red Fish it just takes a lot of casting.

The Spanish Mackerel are showing up in big numbers close to the beach in the Gulf. Little spoons of all colors and sizes are doing a good job catching these fish. Pompano fishing is in full swing now also. Pink Jigs seem to be doing a good job for me right now along with sand fleas. There are still some nice Red Fish on the beach also, so keep your eye peeled for them too.  Just in the last two days schools of Jack Crevalle have made the presence on the beach. I’m sure looking forward to getting into to these brutes. The Cobia run is a little off the last four days or so due to the North winds and cooler weather, that’s all right though it just means that the big run of fish is yet to come. 

It’s all good, so come on down this way and let’s have some fun!!! 

There is a final moment of unyielding patience which, in angling, so often makes the difference between fish and no fish!