Beach Fishing:
April typically is the month I count on the bait showing up on the beaches and targeting kingfish around the near shore reefs.  This never materialized due to weekly cool fronts pushing through and muddying up the water, keeping temps below 72 degrees.  These factors played a part in not allowing the bait to stack up and draw good numbers of fish in.   The good news is the temperature has finally hit the magical number between 72 and 78 and it appears that the bait is arriving.  The window will be short, but there still may be a chance to bag a king this spring from the beach.

There was still good fishing on the reefs with grunts, flounder , catch and release grouper and lots of sharks.  The April grouper bite was off the chain last year at this time, but a bit sluggish this April for me.  We have still had some good bites, but they have been really big fish and broken off more than we have seen. Sharks have been plentiful and the spinner sharks have been putting on some spectacular shows with their acrobatic disblay of leaps and “spins”. Most of the sharks have been in the 3-5 foot range and mostly black tips and spinners.

Inshore Report:
This April was a great month for the red drum around the docks and mangroves. We had some epic battles with over slot fish under the docks. Sometimes the fish got the better hand but thats why the call it fishing. Fresh shrimp and cut bait worked well for these bruisers.

The snook bite has been hit and miss as they transition to the passes. In my trips this month we have been targeting the snook in the canals and the only fish we have landed were under slot fish because the big girls worked us hard onn the docks.

Trout fishing this spring has been good, especially under the lights at night with shrimp or white bait.