New Smyrna, Ponce Inlet, Mosquito Lagoon Fishing Report December 2016

Only a couple weeks left in 2016; we’re about to put the wraps on another great year of guiding and fishing. I’ve been a full-time fishing guide for 12 years now and have been blessed to fish with hundreds of people from around the country and experience some fantastic days on the water. This year has been no exception. Most recent we’ve been finding good action fishing for redfish, speckled trout and some black drum and snook. Sight fishing right now is the best it’s been all year which is producing some great days on the water. 

Fishing for redfish in Mosquito Lagoon remains excellent. Clean water is present throughout the Lagoon and sight casting has been great. Redfish have been schooled up in much of Mosquito Lagoon tailing for shrimp and crabs. These fish are ranging from 4-10lbs and have been biting well on grass flats early before scattering as the morning wears on. Closer to New Smyrna Beach redfish remain pretty scattered in coves, shorelines and oyster beds. Spoons and soft plastic swim baits have worked well when throwing lures, shrimp and live mullet are producing when using live bait. As we get into January and water levels drop and it gets colder, we should start to see some big schools of fish form in sloughs and creeks. 

Colder clean water is starting to push up some big female speckled trout onto shallow grass flats throughout Mosquito Lagoon and the North Indian River Lagoon. Higher water has them still a bit scattered though and not very concentrated. We’ve been seeing some giants in the 8-12lb range as of late. Smaller trout are still being caught scattered on sand bar edges and deeper flats. Live mullet are working well, in addition to soft plastic swim baits, soft plastic jerk baits, and popping cork with live shrimp. 

Colder temperates and water are schooling snook up in deeper holes, creeks and channels around New Smyrna Beach and Ponce Inlet. This is really my favorite time to target them as we can usually catch 20 or more per day when it’s on. Many of them will be 12-24” snook, but we routinely get some upwards and over the 30” mark. Live shrimp and soft plastic shrimp are top producers, but Sebile and Mirrodine twitch baits work really well too. 

Only have about 5 days left open in December. January has been filling quickly early and late in the month, but I’ve got about 13 days left open. Winter fishing can be some of the best catching of the year! Don’t wait till last minute because my calendar is usually booked full. I take last second scheduling if I have open days. Call me at 386-212-4931 or email to secure a date. Read my fishing charter page to view the top reasons why you should book your trip with me today. I look forward to fishing with you soon…

Pictures from past month can be found on my website...

http://www.floridasightfishing.com/report.htm

New Smyrna Beach - Ponce Inlet - Mosquito Lagoon Fishing Report August 2016

Can’t believe we are already in August. Kids are gearing up and/or going back to school all over the country. I’ve been guiding 12 years now and each year I look back at a certain month during a year that was one for the memory book. July 2016, was definitely one of those we won’t forget. Every trip totally crushed the catching!!! We didn’t have a day all month with less than 2 dozen speckled trout caught. Most days saw several redfish, including some giants upwards of 40 pounds caught in Mosquito Lagoon. Several lucky clients got to catch a big tripletail. We had some great snook bites and Tarpon got really thick around New Smyrna Beach during the past week. The best news…July ended like it started and it hasn’t slowed a bit as we enter August. So what are you waiting for?!? 

The Speckled Trout bite has been about as good as it gets in Mosquito Lagoon and the North Indian River Lagoon for no less than 8 weeks straight! Each day we’ve averaged 20+ spotted sea trout per day. And the giant trophy size trout have been coming one after another. We caught 5 trout in the past month between 29-32 inches (all in the 8-9.5lb range). We literally caught too many trout to count in the 4-6lb range (one charter alone had 11 trout over 4 pounds!) It’s been phenomenal to say the least and we started August just like we ended July with a trip that yielded five trout in the 4-6lb range. You can get some sight casting with lures in the shallow grass, but we’ve been slinging live baits for numbers and quality. 

Water levels have been pretty low the past few weeks. Redfish have been tailing good early on grass flats in Mosquito Lagoon. There are also some shoreline cruisers. Around the full moon bigger bull reds in the 15-40 pound range have schooled up in pre-spawn mode. Catching mostly depends on how long we specifically fish for them. We’re basically averaging a few per hour up in the shallows. Soft plastics, spoons, and plugs are all working. Live bait like pigfish, shrimp, or sight casting with cut baits works even better. Spawning is really going to ramp up over the next 2 months so it should yield even more big bull reds at or around Ponce Inlet. 

Put some lucky clients on several nice tripletail during the past month. It’s not a strong inshore fishery for us locally, more of a special occasion fish I find from time to time. This year though I found some big ones. We stuck a few over 10 pounds, with the biggest a 17 pound pig. Great fighting fish that run line and jump hard. 

Everyone has been talking about the Snook fishing. It’s been close to seven years since they were decimated by cold weather. Now those born shortly after have grown up and scattered widely. Docks and shorelines around New Smyrna Beach, Ponce Inlet and Port Orange can have snook of any size lately. Some big ones in the 10-20 pound range too. Live bait and soft plastic shrimp are top choices for catching them. Snook season closed for the summer on June 1, so it’s all catch and release. 

The ocean cooled off considerably lately and Tarpon are pushing in through the Inlet by the dozens. We saw one area literally triple in numbers within 48 hours last week They are all ranging in size from 30-80 pounds. Every now and then you might see a big one over 100. Jigs, swim baits, plugs and live bait are best chance for success. Numbers usually remain high during the next couple months before they migrate south during the fall. 

Got about 14 days left open for August. Get it while the getting is good!!! September and October are looking to be outstanding, especially as the bait run will get underway and cooler overnight temperatures trigger even more of a fall feeding frenzy. I take last second scheduling if I have open days. Call me at 386-212-4931 or email to secure a date. Read my fishing charter page to view the top reasons why you should book your trip with me today. I look forward to fishing with you soon…

Pictures from the past month can be found on my website...

http://www.floridasightfishing.com/report.htm

New Smyrna Beach Area - Indian River Lagoon - St. Johns River - Mosquito Lagoon Fishing Report May 4, 2016

 

Hard to believe it’s already May and within a few weeks kids will be out of school for the summer! I took off 2 weeks this month to hunt spring turkeys in FL, GA, and WV. So now that’s over, it’s back to every day fishing. Recent fishing for us has produced days of pretty good fishing for redfish, trout, and some juvenile tarpon. I’ve also been seeing a fair number of small sharks cruising around the north end of Mosquito Lagoon near New Smyrna Beach. Water levels are back up again which is producing some great shoreline sight fishing and “tailing” action on shallow grass flats in Mosquito Lagoon.

Brown algae looks like it’s decreasing quite a bit in the middle part of the Indian River Lagoon and Banana River area with some great clean water filling the Lagoons. This hopefully will continue into the North Indian River Lagoon over the next month or so. Good news is it really doesn’t matter since the fish are tailing up in the shallow grass and cruising cleaner shorelines. Even better, the upper half of Mosquito Lagoon all the way north to Ponce Inlet has almost returned to normal summer water clarity conditions.

Only have 7 days left open for May. June through September is starting to book up quick with summer vacationers. The summer is always super busy so don’t wait till last minute if you can help it if you want on the calendar.

We’ve been spending most of our charter fishing time on Redfish action in Mosquito Lagoon. The upper half of the Lagoon all the way to Ponce Inlet has for the most part returned to normal summer water clarity conditions. This is yielding good fishing for redfish cruising shorelines and oyster clumps, tailing on grass flats, floating on deeper grass flats. Catching has been solid with 6-10 redfish per morning in the 5-10 pound range. The southern half of the Lagoon is a bit trickier. Dirtier water limits sight casting when the water is up. But when the water drops down we’ve been catching 10-15 pound redfish tailing and floating on grass flats. There are bigger bull redfish over 20 pounds hanging around the bridges in New Smyrna, along the jetty at Ponce Inlet, and in some sections of the ICW. There are also some in normal spots in the North Indian River Lagoon as well, but we basically need slicked out conditions to find them with poor water clarity.

This is also historically the best time of year to catch some world class Speckled Trout approaching 8-10 pounds. It’s the late spring, early summer spawn season so the big females are fat and full of eggs. (These are strictly catch and release on my boat.) Lately I’ve seen some giants laid up and cruising in the grass in several places in Mosquito Lagoon and some deeper edges in the Indian River Lagoon. Live mullet and croakers will give you the best chance of scoring on a giant trout of a lifetime, but we’ll catch them on soft plastics and plugs as well.

Found a couple places in Mosquito Lagoon and the Indian River Lagoon that have juvenile Tarpon in the 5-10 pound range rolling and biting shrimp and small soft plastics. We’ve also seen a few in the 15-25 pound range starting to get active in deeper creeks and the ICW. They will only get more active from now through the early fall…the hotter the water the better for tarpon.

With the summer warm up Snook are also on the move and scattering throughout the New Smyrna Beach, Ponce Inlet, Edgewater and north part of Mosquito Lagoon. We’ll be targeting them them on Docks, bridges, and mangrove shorelines. Early mornings with favorable tides work best. We don’t have the numbers like you find in south florida, so they can be harder to specifically target. But they can be a nice change of pace or a way to complete a slam.

If you’re looking for something totally different to try out or fish with me...we can hit the freshwater lakes and St Johns River system for a great early summer Largemouth Bass bite. Bass are coming out of their spawning season with some fish still guarding bed areas. The bite has lasted past lunchtime each day. Been spending a couple days on the freshwater each week during the past few weeks. Primarily casting lures, we’ve had a good bite on fish up to the 4-6 pound range, with 10 or so fish each morning.

Only have 7 days left open for May. June through September is starting to book up quick with summer vacationers. The summer is always super busy so don’t wait till last minute if you can help it if you want on the calendar. I take last second scheduling if I have open days. Call me at 386-212-4931 or email to secure a date. Read my fishing charter page to view the top reasons why you should book your trip with me today. I look forward to fishing with you soon…

Pictures from past month can be found on my website...
http://www.floridasightfishing.com/report.htm

New Smyrna Beach - Ponce Inlet Area - Mosquito Lagoon Fishing Report February 2016

Getting closer to spring now! Will be a couple remaining cold fronts to come, but for the most part, winter is over. Water levels continue to remain high. The north half of Mosquito Lagoon to Ponce Inlet and Daytona has crystal clear water and excellent sight fishing. The southern half of Mosquito Lagoon and all of the Indian River, however, has poor clarity in the deeper basins from an algae bloom, but fair-good clarity on the shallow grass flats. There’s good and bad to that…the fish are still there, just harder to see. They are also a lot less spooky than the fish schooled up in the gin clear water. Lately it’s been a steady dose of redfish and speckled trout with a lot of successful catching. There’s also some black drum schools around in a few places. This is the peak travel time for tourists and my calendar is close to full through March, so don’t wait till last minute to schedule a trip! 

Best fishing for Redfish has been in Mosquito Lagoon. The northern half of Mosquito Lagoon has really clean water all the way to Ponce Inlet and beyond. Sight fishing remains excellent with some big winter schools of redfish early in the morning in creeks, sloughs, and channels. The water has remained high so redfish are scattering on the flats later in the morning. Most of the fish are in the 4-10 pound range. Although I’ve found a big school of 10-15 pound redfish recently that had hundreds of fish. Live shrimp, mud minnows, and mullet are bringing a lot of fish to the boat. Spoons, lipless crankbaits, and soft plastics are producing when we throw lures. Baitfish flies are scoring for fly anglers. While there are big bull reds in the Indian River Lagoon they aren’t schooling in any big numbers just yet with reduced water clarity. Hopefully things improve soon so we can match what we did last March, April, and May when we averaged 10-15 redfish per day in the 20-40 pound range. 

There are lots of big Speckled Trout over 4 pounds laid up on the shallow flats throughout the Mosquito Lagoon. And in deeper sloughs, creeks, and channel edges there are tons of smaller 10-20 inch trout. Free lining mullet and mud minnows is the best bet to score on good numbers of speckled trout. Suspending plugs and soft plastic jerk baits will score when throwing lures. Having said all that, we are the cusp of the best big trout fishing of the year in April and May. It’s historically our best time to catch one over 10 pounds and my calendar fills each year with anglers here for that purpose. Don’t wait! 

Several schools of big black drum have now schooled up in the Mosquito Lagoon and Indian River Lagoon. Some of these fish are in the 20-30 pound range. Most of them are in the 5-15 pound range. They can be relatively easy to catch when you find them and provide some good pulling action. Shrimp and cut crab provide guaranteed success for these bottom feeders. 

Unfortunately haven’t done much in terms of Snook fishing this winter. Some of my better deep winter holes are full of dirty water which makes sight casting impossible. And even knowing they are there, it’s difficult for them to see baits/lures so it’s been slow. Normally we average 20-30 a day this time of year, so any break in water clarity could turn things around quick. 

March is nearly full, only 5 days left open. April is getting full as well, only 10 days left open. So hopefully you aren’t waiting till the last minute to get in on the spring time fishing. I take last second scheduling if I have open days. Call me at 386-212-4931 or email to secure a date. Read my fishing charter page to view the top reasons why you should book your trip with me today. I look forward to fishing with you soon…

Pictures from recent charters can be found on my website...

http://www.floridasightfishing.com/report.htm