April 2016
April has always been one of my favorite months of the year to fish the inshore waters of St. Augustine and this year has been no exception. The big speckled trout have started showing up this month with a number of fish being caught over 5 lbs. The go-to baits have been mirrolure, top dog junior and mirrodine sinking hard plastic jerk baits. These large trout are all roe filled females and I persuade my clients to release them due to these fish being the breeding stock. Also these bigger fish just are not that good to eat.
The redfishing has been on fire this month with most days producing 10-15 fish in the keeper slot range with some days as many as 20 on a half day trip. These fish have been pretty consistently in the 24 –25” range. Along with the keeper slot size fish we have also been catching quite a few undersize fish with a few over slot (over 27”).
All these redfish have been caught on ¼ ounce jig heads with shrimp. About half the redfishing this month has been in deeper holes in the back country creeks and the others on shallow flats of the intracoastal. We also had the second leg of the redfish pro tour on the 9th of April out of St. Augustine. We had a 6th place finish. We had plenty of opportunities to finish higher but had a number of quality fish just pull off. After our February 1st place finish we are still 2nd in terms of our our team and the year’s points!
I expect the fishing patterns for April to continue through the month of May and if the May fishing is anything like April – we won’t have anything to complain about!