St. Vincent Island to Steinhatchee
Includes Apalachicola, St. George Island, Carabelle, St. Marks and Keaton Beach

Sept 3-5

Inshore

We have had a lot of rain in the past few weeks and some heavy winds which has muddied up the bay waters. I suggest fishing clearer/green water. Most of your clear waters will be around the outside beaches around cuts and passes. The good news is as the week and the calmer weather progress, the water will clear.

The inshore fishing has turned on in a BIG way the past couple of weeks with the cooler than normal temperatures. Expect the evening temperatures to be near the 70s which is just right for night fishing or flounder gigging. Wake up before sunrise and target nice speckled trout, silver trout, black drum or redfish. Locate pods of birds dipping and diving in the water occasionally; you will see the bait literally jump out of the water to evade the fish that are nipping at their tails as they dive right into a sea gull’s or pelican’s hungry mouth.

Cast any soft plastic that emulates the bait underneath, use light weight tackle and hold on as some really nice 22-26 inch speckled trout have been underneath the bird pods. The early morning and late evening bite for speckled trout has been better for a couple of weeks due to the unusually early water temperature drop! Try fishing along the grassbeds around underwater or above-water structure near a fresh water outlet at the head of the bay. Or head into one of the many branches of brackish waters.

Also good trout and redfish have been caught lately around Yents Bayou, eastward in the Carrabelle river areas near the bridge and old docks, as well as the grass flats around FSU lab and east of Lanark Village. We have been using live bait shrimp and greenies (our first choice) and/or soft plastic baits such as Berkley Gulp, Bass Assassin and Calcutta in varying colored plastics. We’re targeting redfish using live bait, cut or fresh baits fishing many of the deeper channels near structure such as Bob Sikes Cut, and the Apalachicola, Carrabelle and SGI bridge pilings during a moving tide.

Offshore

This weekend with calm winds predicted I suggest you go fishing while you can! Sadly, we are in peak tropical season.

Calm winds and cooler weather predicted this weekend will have you free to travel the offshore waters, if you can tear yourselves away from all those football games scheduled this weekend. Use live pinfish or blue runners, frozen cigar minnow, squid, goggle-eyes or Spanish sardines.

During this time of year, when so few fishermen have been in the water for the past few weeks, the fish should be hungry. Expect to catch a mixed bag of (multi species) grouper, (multi species) snapper, triggerfish, black sea bass and a variety of reef dwellers. King mackerel, cobia and a multi species of shark have been cruising the near shore reefs and wrecks as baitfish are beginning their exit out of the bay and inshore waters.

With the last several days of bad thunderstorms I've only heard only a couple of reports from SGI debris site and the Franklin County Reef. Both reports were pretty good in numbers, just not keeper sizes. Who knows what will bite this week as things are changing from summer to fall and nothing is written in stone.

Please note: Red Snapper season is closed in both state and federal waters therefore, any red snapper caught must be returned to the water unharmed.

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