April Fishing Report

Fishing is incredible right now. Whether it’s inshore on the flats, in the bay on structure, or along the beaches, fish of all kinds are moving through our area and eager to eat.

On the flats, there is a ton of life. Pinfish and glass minnows have made their way back into the shallows, where they’ve taken up residence on grass and sand flats. Mullet are working in big schools along the shoreline, milling around on the bottom and filling themselves with mud. Speckled trout and redfish patrol around the mullet schools, eagerly searching out any shrimp, crabs, or baitfish that are flushed out as the mullet do their thing. During times of high water, you can find small groups of redfish patrolling right along the shoreline, where they become great targets for spot-and-stalk sight fishing. Once the tide drops out, you can cruise around and throw soft plastics into slightly deeper potholes where speckled trout tend to congregate and wait for the water to come back up.

Mangrove snapper, a favorite of mine for both their ease of acquiring and their tastiness on a taco, have started showing up in all the regular places they hang out during the spring. Mixed in along jetties, bridge pilings, seawalls, docks, and many other shallow-water submerged structures, mangroves offer a fun fight on light tackle with little specialized gear needed. A flatlined or lightly weighted shrimp or baitfish is the perfect offering for a hungry mangrove.

A few sheepshead continue to be caught in the inlet along the jetties and around other submerged structures. I find the best action is during the change in tide, when the water slows down and changes direction. Right at slack tide, you can often see sheepshead come up from the bottom of the rocks and start suspending over the top of them. At this point, you can throw a split shot with a shrimp or fiddler crab and have solid chances of getting into a good bite window while reducing your chances of getting hung in the rocks. A small #2 VMC circle hook will help get these finicky feeders hooked when they do bite.

In the troughs along the beaches, a wide variety of fish are being caught right now—Spanish mackerel, pompano, big jacks, and redfish, just to name a few. Each of these has its own appeal and tactics that work best. For Spanish mackerel, you can either troll small spoons or mackerel rigs behind the boat to locate fish, or, if the fish are feeding on the surface, run from school to school and cast plugs or jigs into the feeding fish. Both techniques offer a high level of success, although I think casting to them is slightly more fun.

If pompano is your target, you’ll want to focus your efforts on working the surf and pockets along the beach where the water is turbulent and stirring up sand fleas, crabs, and shrimp. The corners of the jetties, where the rocks meet the beach, are another good area to look for pompano. Natural baits work well when fished from shore on a two-hook rig, but one of the most productive and exciting ways to catch them is by using small hair or metal jigs fished along the bottom. They may be smaller fish, but they fight hard and taste delicious.

As always, if you have additional questions about what’s biting, how to catch them, or if you’d like to book a trip, I encourage you to give me a call or send me an email.