Perhaps a better way to say it is that SOFLA has had very little winter, so shallow water fishing seems to be holding up. Yet these undemarcated seasons can throw confusion into inshore gamefish patterns. As bears awaken all too early from their hibernation in Russian hinterlands, tarpon on the other side of Mother Earth may begin a very early migration to the Keys, only to be thrown by a late season sucker punch of a cold snap in April. Who knows?
Based on my observations lately, bones and tarpon have moved over to the oceanside flats and channels respectively, a trend that is associated with "wintertime".
This Friday morning featured a wisp of a cold front which dropped water temps. a degree or two. Problem was that the front was accompanied by a high "mackeral sky" cloud cover, which made peering in early morning flats waters quite hard.
So it was time to make lemonade from lemons by blind casting flats dropoffs, basins, and reefy inshore structure. The species that came to the jig were seatrout, big ladyfish, mojarra, jacks, and large blue runners. I switched tactics for some very large grey snapper and used a "snook hook" with a 2/0 trailer on which I mounted a large juicy live shrimp. That move gave me over a dozen fish to 4 pounds.
The sun broke through the cloud cover and stayed unfetterd and bold above me. I fired up my engine, ran for five minutes and staked out my skiff on an oceanside flat where I tossed out some chum. I did have two groups of two bonefish dart in, then out of the area. If the water temperature was a few degrees higher, I think those fish would have tracked in a little longer. If the weather stays mild, inshore angling forays should show better and better results.
Jan
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