Homosassa to Steinhatchee
Includes Homosassa, Crystal River, Yankeetown, Waccasassa Bay, Cedar Key, Suwannee, Horseshoe Beach, Steinhatchee and Keaton Beach
October 25-27
Mind Your (Mackerel Season) Manners!
If you’ve read either of my Saltwater Angler’s Guides and paid attention to my subchapter about on-the-water etiquette, you may not need this reminder. But as “mackerel season” is upon us, I feel I need to repeat a few of my observations (and rules!).
Generally, there’s plenty of room on the flats and those drifting for trout can easily stay well away from each other. However, when schools of Spanish mackerel, often mixed with bluefish, jacks and ladyfish, target a bait pod the action can get pretty concentrated. If you’re the first (or only) boat “on scene” you can easily set up a drift to put you in the path of the action or you can set up a trolling pattern. In either case, don’t head into the center of the action, but concentrate on the edges—that’s where the bigger predators will be and you’ll be less likely to drive the fish down and away.
Feeding mackerel will eat just about any offering, up to and including the spare beer can opener you keep in your tackle box. I can still make a pretty effective mackerel rig using a #4 treble hook, a foot of wire leader and a MacDonald’s soda straw. Gotcha plugs are similar in action to the soda straw rig and cast easily, but those little trebles are super sharp and can be dangerous when unhooking a big Spanish mackerel. The single hooks on #00 Clarkspoons and Flowering Floreos make life easier when there are “doubles” and “triples” coming aboard. Live baits work well, too, and are really popular down south in Pinellas County, but I’m not convinced the time needed to catch them and the trouble to store them makes the results any different. Admittedly, I’m not a live-baiter, and am generally happy not to be. My best advice is to use up all the old rusty plugs in your tackle box when the mackerel show up. 40-pound fluorocarbon leader will help, but toothy fish will certainly take a few plugs from your precious collection!
Here are some fishing reports from our Big Bend:
From Steinhatchee’s Sea Hag Marina:
Inshore fishing is back to normal, with great redfish and trout fishing on the flats. The floating grass has dramatically improved, and the inshore topwater bite will be excellent, but fish with suspending lures as the sun gets higher during the day. Jigs with and without popping corks will take lots of keeper trout in 3 to 5 foot depths. Fish mixed sand and grassy bottom; recent hot spots have been south of the Bird Rack offshore of Big Grass Island and the Fisherman’s Rest areas to the north, and Rocky Creek, Sink Creek and Bull Cove and Pepperfish Keys to the south.
Several important announcements: the annual Santa Fe Lady Raiders fishing tournament takes place October 26th at the Sea Hag marina; this is a great tournament for a great cause, so make plans to compete. You can also get a weekly Sea Hag fishing report on the radio; the “Gone Fishing” show on AM1600 every Friday from 12 until 2PM; the Sea Hag report is usually around 1 PM. Tune in! And lastly, the Gainesville Offshore Fishing Club donated funds to increase the size of the Buckeye Reef. Shortly after the culverts were put in place, there were amberjack and grouper present, with schools of baitfish. The GPS coordinates for the new expansion are: N29 38.441 W083 54.748
From Homosassa Capt. William Toney:
Inshore fishing for gag grouper right now is on fire. Casting shallow water plugs and soft plastics toward rocks or spring holes in 8 feet of water may result in an arm jerking strike! A good starting point is the Foul Area about 3.5 miles north west of the Bird Rack. Large soft plastics like the D.O.A. Swim ‘n Mullet or the 6 inch shrimp also work’s very well and can be fished slower and right on the top of the structure. A great bonus with the soft plastics is that some large flounder can be caught with these lures fishing right next to the sand around the rock.
Trout fishing has picked up this week and the pending cold front should help out the trout bite even more. The best areas have been near Buck Horn Key, St. Martins Key’s and Mangrove Point. Kelp bottom is what to look for and good moving water is best. Either tide is good as long as the boat is moving. The best colors have been MirrOlure LIL’ Johns in bourbon, watermelon red flake and tube worm. The D.O.A. 3” shrimp in fire tiger has work well too.
Red fishing has been up and down but there have been a few schools of reds showing up on the incoming tide. Good numbers of redfish are scattered around between Pea Pass and Fish Creek on the last hour of incoming tide. On the first part of the incoming tide look for schools of red fish on the outside keys west of Ozello. My clients and I ran across one that had about 500 fish in it and we starting casting anything that was tied on the end of the line and we were all hooking up. One of the only down falls was that some of the rods were rigged for trout with popping corks and jigs. The redfish went crazy over them and when you would hook one the rest of the reds would attack the cork and the result was a broken line and a very trashed popping cork. It was very exciting to watch. High incoming tide this weekend will be first thing in the morning.
From Crystal River Capt. Marrio Castello:
The redfish bite has been best right on the edge of the mangroves around points and small oyster patches inside the islands of Ozello. We are catching them on a 1/8 oz. jig head and DOA Cal shad tail in the gold glitter/glow back color or using a live select shrimp free lined on a light wire circle hook. We are also seeing lots of juvenile snook just about everywhere we see the redfish. This is a very welcome site.
Big over slot black drum are an easy target for sight fishing along the bars in Yankeetown. It is very easy to spot their broom like tails waving back and forth while they feed on crustaceans living among the oyster bars. Live select shrimp or a half crab on a circle hook will get hit nearly every time but they can also be caught using a 1/8 oz. jighead and DOA Cal shad tail covered in Pro Cure blue crab scent.
From Homosassa Capt. Rick Burns:
As fall approaches, so do our migratory pelagic fish. Species such as bluefish, Spanish mackerel, and cobia, just to name a few are already showing up. These types of fish move up the coast during the fall and back down during the spring. Besides our resident homeboys such as the redfish and spotted seatrout that stay around all year, now is the time to start to take advantage of these others as well. If you’re going to specifically target a species such as the macks, it’s wise to incorporate a steel leader at the end of your line. If not, you will be donating a lot of lead to either them or the salty pond, or both. And it can get expensive fast. Best way to draw them up is to anchor off a nearshore rock pile and put out a couple of chum bags to get things started. Throw either little silver Gotchas, Clarkspoons, or a shrimp under a popping cork. Cobia same way except have bigger gear and get you the biggest pinfish you can buy. Or better yet, just hire a good cobia or mackerel guide and let us worry about it. One reason is because where we go, you’ll definitely want decent weather and a decent boat to handle the situation because of the little farther distance and deeper water. Another is because we’ve done this several times and know where to go and be most productive.
Capt. Tommy Thompson’s website {352-284-1763} captain@twotree.net
Inshore Light Tackle and Fly Fishing
Steinhatchee, Florida