This week it has been more of the same. The Tarpon have been our main focus and that continues to be strong. The storm that came by did kick up quite a swell but after it passed the fish and the bait gathered back up and went back to a similar pattern to what they were on before. Finding big bait has been quite a bit easier as it seems that most bait that you find has been “turbo” sized. Mullet are still showing up in the surf from time to time and that is always a nice bonus to have.

In addition to the Tarpon, we have been picking up a lot of Bull Redfish. They have been caught here and there throughout the summer, but the bite this week was ridiculous. We had our best day on Wednesday when we lost count of how many Reds we caught but definitely had over 10. Capt. Greg Hildreth was fishing close by and reported that he had 19 at last count. That isn’t too bad when you figure that we only fished one bottom rig while Tarpon fishing and even had Redfish eating the float baits! Sometimes we couldn’t even get the rod in the rod holder before hooking up, so I would hate to know what we would have done with a standard 4 rod spread of bottom rigs and chunked mullet.

Fishing Forecast for September

Tarpon and Bull Redfish will continue to be the main targets this month although in the latter part of the month I expect the focus to shift more towards deliberately fishing for the big reds. As long as the Tarpon and Redfish are being found in the same places I will continue to fish a Tarpon spread although I may go to a “two up, two down” spread with two float bait and two bottoms baits. I’ve been taking my free line out and replacing it with a second float rig in order to help keep the lines clear of each other but on the second float rig I am letting the cork slide freely on the main line. This has helped but putting enough resistance on the bait to keep it from crossing all of the other lines.

Inshore fishing should get hot towards the end of the month and really isn’t too bad right now. The big tides that we will have this week will put a damper on the inshore fishing but should light the Tarpon off. While we have the big tides we should also have several days for flood tide Redfish with the first couple of days giving us evening floods and the last couple of days giving us morning floods. I find that the first day or two of flood tides produce the most fish and after that you will still find plenty of Redfish but not as many. I have a few openings during the flood tide days so make sure to give me a shout if you would like to book a trip.

This month should be a great month for fishing as the variety of targets will give you plenty of opportunities. Trout, Redfish, Flounder, Tripletail, Tarpon, and Bull Reds will all be targets that you can go after with confidence. I expect the days prior to the new moon to be especially good for the inshore species.
Please feel free to share your reports and pictures on the forum or email them to [email protected] . Until next week, tight lines!