Fishing Report for Indian River & St. Lucie River - Offshore

It has been a couple of weeks of ups and downs fishing out of Stuart. When the winds were up we were stuck inside, when they were down we had some decent offshore fishing. Some sailfish and scattered dolphin were caught in between the hordes of bonita attacking our baits. From south of the St. Lucie inlet to the north the story was about the same. A couple of good days with a decent dolphin bite and then a couple of days without, as the cold fronts come in about once a week, not allowing the fishing to get established. The resulting colder water temperatures make it harder to catch live bait and slow down the bite. There have been some bright spots such as some true red snapper being caught and one boat hooking a blue marlin. As I write this report another cold front with high winds is rapidly approaching. We will see what effect this one will have in the next few days. The bright spot has been the Indian River up by the power plant. The trout bite has been pretty consistent although on the colder days it may be mid morning before the fish turn on. Just yesterday we had several fish over twenty inches and a nice 22 inch redfish. We were using white jerkbaits along with purple jerkbaits and mirro lures. The purple baits caught the most fish. Fish along the docks and throw your bait near the pilings. In the St. Lucie River pompano have been caught near Hell’s Gate on a moving tide. Shrimp tipped Nylures and redfish jigs have been the winning ticket. More later.