I thought winter was over

I thought winter was over.

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Last week I almost put up my sub zero clothes in preparation of the spring thaw and I am glad I didn't. I got up this morning to ice on the truck and a crunchy ground.

Redfish are slow at best, unless you can pick one of those days the low tide is around noon or 1 pm and it is a bright sunny day with little or no wind. Then as the tide gets low and the sun beats down on that black mud, it is warmed a few degrees more than the water. As the tide moves back in and the water comes in contact with the warmed mud, the water temperature rises a few degrees. Most of the time this will trigger the redfish to start to get motivated to feed and if you are in the right place at the right time and the sun, moon and stars are aligned just right you will have a pretty good two hours of redfish action. I can't wait until summer. I hate the cold.

The trout are still acting like they want to eat but your presentation better be extremely slow. When the water gets as cold as it is now, your best bet for trout is a lead head jig from 1/4 to 3/8 ounce with a Gotcha 3 to 4 inch trout curl tail in white with a chartreuse tail. WORK IT JUST OFF OF THE BOTTOM VERRRRY SLOW. Most of the time the fish will mouth it and it will seem heavy. Set the hook one time and the fish should be there. When the water temperature moves back up in the low to mid 60's, you can move up to a larger bait and work it a little faster but still a little slow. The great thing about this Gotcha curl tail, is it catches almost everything that swims in this area. I never leave the house without several packs in my boat. Other colors that work are chartreuse, motor oil and gold but the white with chartreuse tail is by far the best for me.

The black drum have yet to show up in any numbers. I am catching one here and there but at the river inlets, where they should be it is one every now and then. I expect this fishery to get better around the middle of March. Try a shrimp, clam or cut crab fished on the bottom in and around the jetties or deep rock piles in the river. If you can find some hard bottom with calms in the sand in the river, this would be a good place to try. The way to find these places is to have a good color recorder like the Humminbird Matrix 97. This unit shows different colors and you will be able to see the colors get darker as the bottom gets harder. When you find a place like this send down a heavy sinker and when it hits bottom it should feel like it is bouncing on concrete. This unit will also give you the ability to see very close zoom in of the bottom. This feature will open doors you have never had. I know since I started using this unit, I am able to see things on the bottom, like small rock piles and even the smallest of bait fish.

The close in (10 to 20 miles out) ocean fishing for very nice seabass is ON FIRE, with limits on every trip. I have been twice recently in my World Cat and had limits on these trips with a nice grouper and a few snapper. Look for live bottom. Now you ask "What is live bottom"? This bottom will show up on your Humminbird as a blue fuss just up from the bottom. Your machine will paint the bottom and as you ease along it will start to show blue fuzzy looking stuff up about one to five feet from the bottom.

When you find this, you should see it all in the area. Say a few hundred feet in all directions. Go ahead and using the mark function on your Humminbird to mark the outside edge of this. You can have several marks on your plotter to identify the outside edges. After you get your outer boundaries on your plotter, you will be able to run UP current, stop the boat and drift this area. There is no need to anchor when seabass fishing.

When you can make the run to the ledge, we are catching pretty good numbers of wahoo and tuna with a few mahi and king mackerel mixed in. Before you make this run, watch the weather and be sure it is going to be nice. This is long way from land and you do not want to be out there in bad weather.

The rules a fixing to change on redfish. The state marine fishery commission has determined there needs to be changes on redfish rules to maintain a good fishery. Both the CCA and the state have determined that if we have 40 percent of redfish born in the creeks return to the ocean our fish stocks should increase. To do this they have decided to change the slot limit to something around 20 to 26 inches from the existing 18 to 27 inch slot. This is a good thing if it will increase the numbers and size of fish we catch.

They have determined that this alone will increase the stocks to the numbers they think are healthy. On the west coast of Florida this is not all that it will take achieve the stocks to a size they want. On the west coast they will also need a closed season for the month of October.

Now remember the closed season is NOT NEEDED to increase stocks on the east coast BUT they want to close the season for redfish in October state wide to have a uniform rule. I ask WHY. Currently there is no uniformity to , speckled sea trout, red snapper, shrimp, snook, scamp, black and gag grouper. These species have different rules depending on what part of the state you fish. What is the difference if we have a different rules for redfish.

If you do not care about this then DO NOTHING.

If you do care contact me at 904 757 7550 or jim@fishingwithjim.com or Vic Tison at 904 699 2285 or vic2fish@aol.com .

We are starting a petition to prevent them from closing redfish on the east coast. If you would like to have your name on this please contact us. IF YOU DO NOTHING we WILL have a closed season here. Please pass this on to all of your buds that fish in this area.