Let’s take a look at the year in review for our inshore fishing. We’ll start with trout. For me the daytime trout bite was slow. Trout were caught but not in the quantity and quality that the last few years have produced. I’m thinking that maybe the lack of rain this year had something to do with it, just a wild guess. It wasn’t until late October through the middle of November that I began to get gator trout and most of those were caught on topwater plugs and flies.
Flounder. The flounder run that usually takes place during the month of November never materialized. However, flounder in the 14” to 16” range have produced most of the year. I even had a report that one angler had 65 flounder in one day during the month of October.
Redfish. Redfish have been their usual steady self but have not yet begun to school on the flats. Probably due to the warm weather we’ve been having. I do expect this to change as we head into January “07”.
Snook. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d rate this year as a 9 compared to previous years. I had some clients lose fish in the 15 to 20 lb range. Because of this I have switched to braided line. I also did good using topwater plugs and flies for snook. Daybreak was the time for flies. During the middle of the day live lining shrimp was the ticket.
Blackdrum. I have never caught as many blackdrum as I did this past year, why I don’t know. Live lining shrimp or shrimp on a jig head did the trick.
Tarpon. I’d rate this year’s tarpon run a 10. They showed up in the beginning of July and were around through the end of August. The run south in August was a sight to behold. Massive bait pods with large tarpon crashing on them and people pulled over on A1A witnessing the show.
So there you have it, my first hand year in review. My new years resolution: Do more fly fishing in “07”. And, oh yea, but what else – go on a diet.
Last week Randy Routh from Washington state and his sister Kathy Routh Sanchez of Palm Coast fished with me. and the pair had action most of the day. The majority of the trout were under sized but they did manage a couple of keepers. They also had a couple of keeper flounder and mangrove snapper, ladyfish and Small reds.
The word from the pier is whiting and blues.
Jake’s Highbridge Bait and Tackle reports reds in the flats around Highbridge and snook up to 25” in the Tamoka basin and smaller ones in Sanchez creek.
Good fishing to all in “2007”

The surf and pier are producing whiting, sheepshead, blues and the occasional oversized red. Any red measured with the tail pinched that is over 27” must be released back into the water. Whiting are eating shrimp or fish bites that are fished on a whiting rig. These rigs come pre rigged and can be purchased at any tackle shop. The blues are hitting dead mullet rigged on a fish finder rig. Sheepshead will eat fiddler crabs fished very close to the dock pilings of the pier. Reds will eat a rigged dead or live mullet. Big reds will eat a bluefish or whiting head rigged on a 4/0 or 5/0 hook.
When I was on the beach Sunday helping my wife with a turtle stranding, there were pelicans and seagulls dive on bait about 200 yards off the beach. What they were eating I couldn’t tell but I suspect it may have been schools of glass minnows. I can tell you that a turtle stranding is when a dead turtle washes up on the beach. They take measurements, pictures and other pertinent information and send it off to the state. So far this year over 50 turtles have washed up dead on Flagler and Volusia county beaches. They think it’s some kind of respiratory aliment that is linked to a red algae growing on the turtles shells.
I finally got out to fish for a few hours on Monday afternoon. I hit one of my trout spots and started tossing a 7m mirrolure and had no luck so I switched over to a 3 ½” bomber in the fire tiger color. On about my 5th cast I connected with a 14” trout. I had a couple of more hits and then landed a 16 incher. I then moved to another spot and had no luck so I moved on. At the 3rd spot I landed a 15 “ trout and lost another that was about 3 lbs. At the 4th and final spot I landed a couple more 15” trout, lost a couple and had a few other hits. I also landed an 18” snook at the last spot.
I like to use deeper diving plugs this time of year because the fish are deeper due to the colder water. Use small plugs in the winter because the trout’s main diet is glass minnows. Fish these plugs slow. Most fish are pretty lethargic this time of year and don’t like to expend a lot of energy chasing bait. If you have a depth finder try trolling the dropoffs in the ICW. You’ll need a plug that can dive in the 6 to 10 ft range.


Photo: Fred Smith with a 20”, 6 spot red that was caught in the flats on a gold spoon.

The word from local captains and other sources tell me the fishing has been kind of slow lately. Capt Chris Herrera told me he found a school of reds in some very shallow water and was tossing flies at them and had nothing but refusals. Personally I have nothing to report since I haven’t been on the water in over a week. The last time I fished our local flats I could only find a couple of small reds but no schools.
Traditionally by the time the month of December winds down and January rolls in schools of reds start to appear in the flats. By this time the water should cool to the low 60’s to upper 50’s and bring in gin clear water to the northern flats of the county. This is a good time to sight fish for reds. They will come up into the flats as the day wears on to warm up and feed. At this time it’s not unusual to find schools of reds that number into the 100’s. I have witnessed such schools on more than one occasion. You can chase one school for as long as the tide will let you.
Once you locate a school you’ll want to use some stealth. If you need to drop anchor, lower it into the water softly so as not to spook the fish. Try to keep movement on the boat to a minimum. Any noise you make on the boat transfers into the water. Use your trolling motor or push pole, if you have one, to search for the fish. Don’t go roaring into the flats, throw your anchor into the water, and expect to catch fish. You’ve just scared off any fish that were there and it could take a good while before they return.
What type of baits to use? That depends on your style of fishing. For live bait fisherman, live or cut mullet is always a good choice. A live shrimp is also a good choice. You can live line it or rig it on a 1/16th once jig head. Live mud minnows work extremely well too. For those of you that use artificial baits your choices are numerous. Soft plastic shrimp, jerk baits, curly tailed grubs and imitation minnows all work. Berkley gulp imitations are a sure bet as are gold spoons. The fly fisherman can use clouser minnows, crab or shrimp patterns and spoon flies. All of the above mention baits will all work, some better than others at certain times.


Photo: Captain Rob Ottlein with a 6 ¾ lb trout that was caught on bubble-head fly back in early November.

Last Saturday I left my house at 5am and headed forty minutes south to Edgewater to fish Mosquito Lagoon. I picked up my buddy John Sizemore at his house and headed to the local boat ramp. After launching the boat we headed south to fish the clinkers. We picked up a couple of trout on 7m mirrolures but it was redfish we were really after so we decided to head north to fish the flats that were not far from where we launched.
In this area it’s pretty easy to wind up in very shallow water real quick if you don’t know where you are going. That’s what happened to us so we had to backtrack and start over. We finally reached our destination and found the area loaded with bait and a lone kayaker that was fishing the shoreline. Although the water was crystal clear the sight fishing was limited because of clouds and a slight chop on the water. We headed to more open water and I got up on the platform to pole the grassflat while John began blind casting a Capt. Mikes gold spoon. Within five minutes we had a 6 lb red in the boat.
Poling further into the flat we spooked several other reds and John cast to a lone red that we spotted but it took off when the spoon was dragged across it’s back. It didn’t take long before John had another red on but this one was much smaller than the first. Heading out of the flats we came upon a point and spooked several more reds. We fished this spot for a few minutes and were rewarded with another red. We fished the rest of the way and wound up losing a couple more fish.
If you have never fished the Lagoon you should put it on your list of places to fish. There are extensive grass flats that hold lots of reds and big trout. When the conditions are right it is also a great place to sightfish.
There are a couple of reasons I like to use a gold spoon when fishing the flats. One reason is because you can cover a lot of water with it. You can also cast it fairly easy into a wind because of its weight. The trick here is to use more of a sidearm cast rather than an overhand one. It keeps the spoon at a lower trajectory that keeps it from getting caught up in the wind. The best reason of all to use the spoon is that it is not often that a redfish will pass one up. Give one a try the next time your on the flats.


Photo: John Sizemore sports a 6 lb red that was caught in Mosquito Lagoon using a gold spoon.