Looking toward a week of lower tides during the first half of the day will give scallopers a better chance at finding more of them. At the time of the opening we had full moon tides and a strong westerly wind flow making for some extreme high tides and that was making it tough to find them. I always do my best scalloping when the tide bottoms out and at the “stand” when there is no moving water, scallops seem to appear in spots that I’ve snorkeled over 30 minutes before.  The nearshore rocks are fun spots to fish for grunts, spanish mackerel, sea bass and mangrove snapper. Allot of times in that 8 to 10 foot range I’ll lift the anchor to drift away from the rock I’m fishing and start throwing MirrOlure LiL’ Johns for trout. If you catch two keepers in a row then concentrate on that area to capitalize on that bite. Sometimes it doesn’t last long. Offshore  look for grouper and snapper around 50 feet. Incoming high tide will be early morning or late evening this weekend. 

William Toney
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