Follow local, CDC guidelines to safely catch fish

The lock downs have been extended, but lucky for us in North Florida fishing is still essential and the spring bite is in full swing. I hope everyone is staying safe and sane in these trying times. If you can get out of the house, there is no shortage of good fishing options for local boat owners once the weather clears in a few days.
Offshore, it’s time to transition from high speeding for wahoo to dragging baits for mahi. Last weekend, quite a few mahi were caught out of both Mayport and Vilano; the run is just getting going and the fishing should be great the next few weeks. The boats trolling last weekend also caught a good number of blackfin and wahoo. It’s tough deciding on rigging this time of year – lots of guys run wire to increase the wahoo landing percentage at the cost of blackfin bites. I like to keep a cedar plug on the shotgun with flouro leader and run wire leaders on the deep baits and planer baits. The mahi really don’t seem to mind the wire, but it will reduce the number of blackfin that hit those set ups, a trade off I’ll take to land a wahoo any day.
The offshore bottom fishing is still great out deep; 120 to 150 feet seems to be the magic zone right now to load up on beeliners, triggers, mangroves, mutton and porgies. With only a couple weeks until grouper season opens back up, it’s a good rime to go mark some new areas out deep while trolling in the mornings and then come back and bottom fish.
Those of you who know me or follow my social media know this time of year I’ve got one fish on my mind, rachycentron canadum. So far this year, the cobia fishing has been really good south of us out of Ponce inlet. I’ve been making the trip for a couple weeks now, first trailering down, and then last Saturday we started the morning at B and M but ended up pushing all the way to Ormond to get on fish. I had thought we would find them closer, but the first ray we caught a fish off was a few miles south of the Flager water tower. The water temps have been in the magic zone for a few weeks now locally but the bulk of the rays have bunkered down south of a colder water patch off the Flagler desert. It went from 68 to 70 degrees F all up the coast from Mayport, then jumped to 73 in about half a mile, and that is where we found fish. I’ve heard of some pockets of rays being seen closer, but I’ve been out everyday it’s fishable and haven’t seen much yet in the 904 for mantas.
What the slow fishing the last week has done though is bring out the worst in a few boaters we have dealt with. It’s common courtesy fishing the beach run to give a wide berth to anyone casting on a ray. If you see another boat fishing a ray, then don’t linger on top of them or, even worse, try and cast to the same fish. The rays are sensitive to the pressure and 99 percent of the time, another boat coming in will just blow the shot for everyone. There are plenty of rays to fish and no reason to crowd someone – keep the social distancing and keep everyone happy out there.
As far as tackle goes, if I’m fishing with friends who know the fishery we primarily use artificial or fly fish. Forty-pound leader is good; a two- or three-ounce bucktail jig is hard to beat. For live bait, a popping cork is a good way to keep a bait up in the strike zone and, if you drift a live pogy or shrimp back past a cobia, they will usually inhale it. Casting accuracy is key for this style fishing, so whatever you choose to use, make sure you can drop it on a dinner plate at 30 to 50 yards. The better your accuracy, the more shots you’ll get before the ray dives.
The only way to find them is to just go look – the magic window is 11-2 for seeing rays, and the light is usually better if you’re heading north, so I like to run to the south end of where I think I’m going to be fishing first then just slowly zig zag back north from about 25 to 40 feet of water at around 5 knots. Take your time and be patient – unless you have an upper station or tower, the more you speed that boat up, the less you will see. This is hours of searching for seconds of excitement fishery. It’s easy to think you’ll see them from farther away then you usually do. One key to seeing rays is to keep your eyes off the horizon and on the water within about 60 yards of the boat.
My best piece of advice for anyone going to try this for the first time is patience. Cobia fishing on the beach is grind; long runs, long days sometimes just staring at water, lots of pressure from other boats, and lots of ways for things to go wrong once you do find a ray holding fish. To actually land a good beach run cobia is an accomplishment, and the quest will leave some cursing the attempt while others relish the few windows we get each spring to do it.
Inshore, the sheepshead are still chewing pretty good at the inlets, the docks up the river and even the nearshore wrecks. The flounder bite has been steadily improving as the water warms up and we see more and more mullet in the creeks. Trout fishing is at its peak right now; this is a great time of year to get out and catch a gator trout on topwater if you are willing to put the cast in and cover enough water. The redfish bite in the creeks is wide open. Capt. Andrew Mizell gave me a report that the creeks north of the river have been stacked with fish and I’ve heard the same thing about the Valley. Unfortunately, with all the rain this week, our water clarity is going to take a big hit and sight fishing will be much harder the next week or so.
All in all it’s a great time to get out of the house and catch some fish. Just follow all the local and CDC guidelines to do so safely, and don’t raft up and party. The sandbars at all the popular spots are still closed and being patrolled regularly by law enforcement.
For any questions, to book a charter trip or to send in a report and pictures of your catch to be featured in a future report, send an email to Chris@fishjax.org.