Wow, what a weekend we had last week. The Old School Kingfish shootout had an amazing turnout with over 600 boats. Huge congratulations to the Riley family for taking first place on the “The Polar Beer” with a 43-pound kingfish.
The fishing has been good this week, as the tournament showed there are clearly some kingfish to be caught. The action on the wrecks is more consistent, slow trolling, drifting flatlines, chumming, or even jigging can all be great ways to catch kingfish. Slow trolling has emerged locally as the most preferred method however chumming or drifting with spinning tackle can be equally effective and almost more fun using light tackle compared to trolling rods. It’s pretty simple to do and can be a great way to pick off any cobia, sailfish or blackfin that might be in the area. I like to drift with a drift sock out but if the current or wind aren’t cooperating anchoring and live chumming can be equally effective. The more live bait you chum with the better, if you can overload one live well with bait and then keep a few dozen baits in another well that will keep them swimming good all day. For terminal tackle a standard wire stinger rig is effective or you can use a double J hook rig without wire.
Inshore the fishing is steady and is in the full summer pattern. You can find birds diving on bait along the river and ICW with jacks, trout and Spanish mackerel underneath them. The redfish are crawling banks on the lower tides, particularly early morning or late evening lows. The flounder bite is the hottest ticket inshore right now, bounce a live mud minnow off the bottom on a jig head and be ready for the thump.
For surf fisherman there are still some whiting and pompano on the beaches, the water is getting warm so be ready to deal with more sharks then earlier in the spring. Variety is the spice of life and when surf fishing variety in bait seems to be one of the keys to success right behind clean water. The best surf anglers I know all bring fresh dead shrimp, clams, fish bites, and a sand flea rake to catch fresh bait. One day the bite might all be on shrimp while the next day it’s fish bites and so on.
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.
May 23, 2026
