February Fishing Forecast
Hitting the flats once the sun is high and with incoming water will give you sight fishing opportunities for Sheep Head. Best bet is to look around oyster bars till you see the striped bandits nibbling away. A stealthy approach is a must by either poling or quietly using your troll motor. . A rig I like to use is a 1/0 Daiichi octopus J hook with a bb split shot a few inches above the hook, I then rig a shrimp weed less by cutting off it’s tail for sent and inserting hook through the tail and back into it’s body for a weedless rig. Bigger Sheep heads will be hanging around deeper water structure like docks, bridges, channel markers and area Inlets. A fishfinder rig with a live fiddler crab is top choice for vertical jigging deep structure.
Trout fishing will be catch and release only as the season is closed from Flagler County north (Flagler County boundary is north of High Bridge). Schooled up trout will be hanging around ICW creek mouths, deep holes in creek bends and Matanzas Inlet. Small soft plastics like RipTide 3 inch mullet or curly tails on a jig head will attract schooled up trout. Gator trout will be sunning on mud flats during the heat of the day and a live mullet swimming on the surface will tempt even the wariest trout.
Redfish schools will be on sun baked flats during higher tides and roaming the ICW during low tides. Multiple fish can be caught as long as you’re quiet and do not get to close. Black drum are relatives to red fish and noted as good table fair when caught less than 5 pounds and can hold their own once hooked. Recent outings have produced good numbers of “puppy drum” which range from 2 to 6 pounds. Simple rigs are used to catch Black drum, one of my favorites is a Slayer inc. ¼ oz. jig head and a live or fresh dead shrimp hooked through the head. Since Black drum are bottom dwellers and feed almost exclusively on the bottom other good baits that produce “stink” are quartered blue crabs, clams and oysters.
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Capt. Chris Herrera
www.PalmCoastFishing.com
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