Happy New Year! As we start a new fishing season and a new decade, it seems like Mother Nature will be up to some old tricks, based on the weekend weather forecast. Friday and Saturday are expected to be blustery with rain, but Sunday certainly looks fishable. And there’s plenty of fish to be caught for those venturing out on the water.
The eastern portion of the St. Marks Wildlife Refuge continues to be the hot zone. Quality trout and redfish top the list, along with flounder, sheepshead, some lingering ladyfish and black sea bass. The lower stretches of the St. Marks River in some of the deeper holes and around the many oyster bars are the prime places to prospect. The East River is also productive when tides allow access. The tidal creeks and adjacent flats are also holding fish with the mostly mild temperatures lately.
A number of lures are working right now, including lighter colored swim baits and fake minnows, rigged with a small jig head or weedless swim bait hooks. White/pearl, silver and glow or chartreuse are working well. Suspending plugs like the MirrOlure Catch 2000, Paul Brown Fat Boys or Rapala X-Rap twitched slowly through the strike zone will draw solid thumps from hungry trout. The Trout Support weedless jerk baits are tricking upper-slot reds, along with the venerable Aqua Dream or Capt. Mike’s weedless spoons in the 1/4-ounce size. Gold or sliver spoons are the best colors with the water so clear of late.
Live shrimp fished under a clacker-style cork or slowly free-lined is hard to beat, especially for junior anglers or novice guests. But DOA plastic shrimp account for plenty of keepers, along with touts like the local Sureketch variety.
The next couple months are prime times to do some strategic scouting on the negative winter low tides. Go slow and use the chart plotter to mark rock piles, oyster bars, creek channels and other fish-attracting (and boat-destroying) structure. This is the slowest time of the year for service work, so if the outboard needs a tune-up or you want to add any accessories, now is the time to schedule it before they get busy again in the spring.
The upcoming weekend won’t offer much in the way of water movement. Tides will crest around mid-mornings before dropping off ever so slightly by mid-afternoon. The amount of water exchanged will be less than a foot. The solunar tables are predicting very high feeding activity the last two hours before the morning highs. A high period coincides right before the tide bottoms out.
Copyright 2020, Capt. Dave Lear. All rights reserved.