CRAZY WEATHER

Can you say ?????. I used to think I had a sort of kind of handle on what to expect during the year in regards to the weather patterns but this year has sent me back to the drawing board. You ask yourself what is this? I thought I was reading a fishing forecast, not a weather report.

Well, weather has a lot to do with fishing, especially when you have been fish fishing for some time and you usually can predict what species will be where and when they will be there.

This year has been one of those years where the weather is so out of whack that predicting the fishing bite is almost out of whack as the weather. No rain for months, then more than the ground can soak up for days. Nor'easters in the summer for days on end. And now 30 plus inches of rain in just a few days. Even with all of this weird weather, I am able to catch a few fish and sometimes catch some pretty nice ones. So lets talk about what has been happening and what should be happening in the next month or two.

The ocean has been producing some nice catches of king mackerel in close up to the last big Nor'easter but this has all changed and these fish have moved out to about the 18 mile mark.

Best bet for Kings is to head out to a reef from 18 miles to about 30 miles out and troll live bait, big spoons, cigar minnows, ballyhoo or squid behind a Sea Striker Tuka Troll, Ballyhoo rig or a Cedar Plug.

I like to run my Cannon downriggers with one bait down 15 to 25 feet and on the other side down to about 40 to 60 feet. If I have trolled for a while with no strikes, I will adjust my depths until I find out where the fish are.

The wahoo should start moving back through by November and you can troll a horse ballyhoo or squid behind the same skirts as you do for king fish. The wahoo will be out on the edge of the stream from 40 to 60 miles out. Now this is a long run for most of us, so it is not a bad idea to go with another boat, for safety reasons.

Offshore bottom fishing for grouper, snapper and seabass should be firing up just about now and should get better throughout the cooler months. Off course, live bait is best but cigar minnows, boston mackerel, squid and an assortment of cut bait work if you are in right spot. If on your way to your favorite bottom spot, you see some live bait, you might want to get your Sabiki rig out and catch a few. When bottom fishing, I almost always send out one or two flat lines (a live or dead bait way out behind the boat on a wire leader live bait rig) for the bonus fish. When bottom fish, all sorts of other fish come up or by to see what you are doing and these can be, cobia, king fish, wahoo, sharks and more. If you have a nice bait out there, you just might catch a bonus fish. If you send it out and put the rod in your T-Top rod holders or outriggers, it will be out of the way of your bottom fishing.

The river and jetties should be producing some nice oversized redfish. Try a cut up croaker, poggy, mullet or chunks of blue crab fish on the bottom. As always, these are the breeders and you should take the time to revive them when you release them.

Monster croakers are in the river pretty thick and these feisty tasty fish can be caught on an assortment of baits, like shrimp, crab, clams, some cut baits and even small scented soft plastics. They can usually be found in the deeper water but there are so many of them around here now that I have even been catching them in the 2 to 3 foot depths on the edges while casting shrimp for reds and flounder.

As of this writing the inshore water levels are about 3 feet above normal from all of the rain but in a couple of weeks when they get back to normal, the inshore low tide red fishing should get back to normal. You will be able to catch these fish using jig heads and shrimp, mud minnows, Sea Striker soft plastics and cut bait. I like a 1/4 ounce lead head jig cast up near the edges of the mound and worked slowly back toward the boat. I find that the strike zone is from the oyster mound edge to about 10 feet out. If you use your Minn Kota trolling motor to keep you as far away from the mound as to still be able to cast to it, you will find you spook less fish, thus MORE bites. Find a nice stretch of oysters, drop your Minn Kota in the water and start working the edges.

Top water lures also work well this time of the year on the higher tides. Put you trolling motor in the water, stay as far off the edge as you can and start casting. Both trout and redfish will eat your topwater. I like the Super Spook, Top Dog, Tiny Torpedo and Crazy Shad. All of these have produced nice fish for me and my clients. I usually fish these using a Pflueger Trion low profile bait caster on a Pflueger 7 foot rod and the outfit spooled with 20 pound test Power Pro braided line. If I am throwing a light lure, I use a Pflueger Infusion spinning reel with 10 pound test Power Pro, attached to a very light 7 foot All Star rod.

There are still good numbers of flounder in the river and creeks and they can be gigged or caught on hook and line. For the hook and line approach, I like a light spinning outfit spooled with 20 pound test Power Pro, a Carolina rig with just enough lead to hold bottom, a 12 inch long 20 pound test Cajun Red leader and a Daiichi D-18 hook in #4 or #2 size. My bait usually consist of mud minnows, shrimp, mullet, cut mullet or a Sea Striker trout grub. Sometimes I will soak the grubs in poggy oil for a few days prior to using them.