Scouting Around Palm Beach And Martin County

In the Jensen Beach area, it’s all about snook. They are being caught at the St. Lucie Inlet and in both the St. Lucie and Indian Rivers along the docks. They are mostly being taken on live bait. Anglers fishing the bridges at night, however, as the mullet are moving through, are having excellent luck working the shadow lines using MirrOlure Top Dog and Rapala Skitter Walk lures.

Anglers fishing for snook are also catching a few huge sea trout as bycatch. There are some serious ‘gators’ out there with one charter captain catching one that was 28 inches.

There have been some big tarpon cruising the area as well so keep a rod ready. D.O.A. Bait Buster and TerrorEyz lures are working well.

In the Boynton Beach area, the mullet have started migrating down the coast and surf anglers are reporting good fishing in the early mornings throwing top water plugs like Zara Spooks and Yozuri Poppers around the schools. They are catching snook, tarpon, jack crevalle and barracuda off the Lantana and Delray beaches.

Boynton Inlet anglers are catching snook, tarpon, mangrove, dog and cubera snapper, as well as barracuda, jack crevalle, redfish and permit. Whole live mullet or sardines are working on the snook along with bouncing feathers along the bottom at night. Redfish are eating cut mullet as are the cubera snapper.

The Intracoastal Waterway has mullet moving through and slow trolling live mullet along the channels and docks has been producing hits from snook, tarpon, jack crevalle, barracuda, and small sharks. Mangrove and cubera snapper up to 15 pounds are hitting jigs tipped with jumbo live shrimp around the rock piles, bridge fenders and shallow artificial reefs.

Lantana Bridge anglers have been catching sand perch and mangrove snapper on cut shrimp.                             LAKE OKEECHOBEE

Similar to the past few weeks, the early morning bass bite is still excellent along the east side of the King’s Bar area. Anglers working the edges of the Kissimmee grass from dawn until about an hour past sunrise are having excellent luck using white swim jigs. After that switching to a beaver- or craw-style artificial bait and pitching around the buggy whips and cattails is producing good results. 

The speckled perch bite has continued to pick up. Jigging using white or white/chartreuse jigs from the surface to five feet in the Little Grassy area, some anglers are catching their limits of these prized pan fish.