Stuart Area Offshore and Inshore

The sailfish tournament season is in full swing and last week's Pirates Cove contest set a record for the number of fish caught. Two hundred and seventy five sailfish were released by fifteen boats fishing for three days. All of these fish were caught on dead ballyhoo with circle hooks. The fish are migrating from north to south and get thicker with each cold front. When the wind direction turns south or west these fish are hard to find. The dolphin bite has been decent in water depths of sixty to one hundred and twenty feet. These fish were found in weed lines stacked up in certain areas. The king bite has been steady in sixty to eighty feet but due to lack of live bait we have been trolling spoons in various colors. Green and gold seem to work well. We even had a sail on a gold spoon the other day. There are some nice snapper, we had beeliners and lane, on the Loran ledge. We also had some good sized sea bass on the bridge rubble in ninety feet. The Spanish mackerel bite down near Peck's Lake has been off the charts the past two weeks. You can hook up on every cast as long as it is shiny and moves fast. We also had several three pound blue fish mixed in. It is a fun thing to do on light tackle and a great day out for the kids. Moving inshore, jacks and ladyfish are tearing up baits all over the inlet area and up the rivers. Some pompano are being are being caught but not in real good numbers yet. We had some croaker and small mangrove snapper at the Ten Cent Bridge on shrimp tipped jigs. Snook season closes on the fifteenth so this is the last weekend to catch one til February first. More later.