With warming water and air temperatures its best to fish at sunrise or sunset with topwater plugs to lure in lunker trout and redfish. Make sure to have a jerkbait rigged and ready to go after missed blow ups for second chance hook ups.
Look for high tide redfish along spartina grass edges, on top of oyster beds and flooded grass areas along ICW. Low tide will push redfish to deeper areas in the flats or along ICW shore lines that hold mullet. Best bait for slow days is a chunk of mullet or mullet head on a 3/0 Daiichi D85Z circle hook tossed around oyster beds. Look for over slot redfish around Matanzas inlet when tide goes slack, use a quartered crab, mullet head or live mullet with enough weight to hold bottom.
Flounder will continue to make up for slow days on the flats and creeks while fishing for redfish. Mudd minnows pinned on a Slayer jig head tossed around deeper creek bends will account for most flounder catches. Shallow water flounder will eat gold spoons and spinner baits retrieved slowly just above the bottom.
Trout fishing will be stellar during low light conditions along creek mouths that dump into the ICW. Subsurface lipped hard plugs like the Bite A Bait and soft plastic FishBites Extreme 3 inch mullet jigged in 4-8 ft. of water will entice trout to chew. Night time dock light fishing will be in full swing as long as the water is moving. RipTide realistic shrimp rigged with a Daiichi Butt dragger in a 3/0 pitched up current and let drift through dock lights will fool just about any trout.
Residential canals will be hot spots during for first light tarpon up to 60lbs. A back hooked mullet or live select shrimp pitched in front of rolling tarpon works best or a Exude Jerk bait rigged on a weight less Daiichi5/0 Fat Gap worm hook tossed in the path of a rolling Tarpon and retrieved at a very slow non twitch retrieve.
Schools of jacks are blowing up on bait fish at first light and make a great way to warm up the drag on your reel. A modified topwater plug with no treble hooks and a single jay hook make for an easy catch and release.
Capt. Chris Herrera
386-437-2545
www.palmcoastfishing.com
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