Stuart Area Offshore and Inshore

The fishing in the past couple of weeks has had its ups and downs. We had a couple of good bottom trips off of the Loran Tower and limited out on beeliners and also caught plenty of lanes porgy and trigger fish. Unfortunately on our third trip to the same spots, The whole area was covered with packs of five to six pound amberjacks. We could not get a bait down without hooking one or two on our chicken rigs. The whole pack would come up with the hooked fish and tangle every ones lines. No matter what spot we went to that day they were there. We decided to drag some ballyhoo and picked up a couple of dolphin. The dolphin bite has been spread out and sporadic but more fish are being boated each week. The cobia bite lit up again on the Sandpile. Last Sunday there had to be fifty boats fishing that area and we saw several fish lost to anchor lines. It does not pay to anchor when fishing for cobia unless you are using heavy tackle. As you get the fish closer to the boat, they have a knack of making another run and will break off on the anchor line. The live bait has been off and on but when it is there look for kings and cudas to be slashing through it. We saw tarpon in the north fork of the St. Lucie River chasing mullet and we expect to see many more of them as the water heats up. More later.