Spring has finally sprung here on the northwest panhandle. The last ten days have been picture perfect days for fishing and the fish have responded very well. The most prominent catch has been the Sheepshead; they are right in the middle of their spawn and are in big numbers around the passes right now. These fish are great table fare and are a blast to catch on light tackle. They can be a bit difficult to catch at times, but when you get your game on - it’s all over.
As for tackle; I like using seven foot heavy action spinning rods, Penn 4400 reels, 20 pound test Stren super braid, Carolina rigged with the appropriate amount of weight with no more than 18 inches of 20 pound test fluorocarbon leader and a #2 Gamakatsu light wire live bait hook.
The bait of choice is live shrimp; I prefer shrimp over crabs. These fish will swallow shrimp whole, but tend to bite the crab and spit out the shell, making it hard to set the hook. If you can’t get live shrimp go for the frozen shrimp, as a last resort you can try fiddler crabs. There’s one thing for sure you are not going to catch many fish on artificial baits, so if you want to be catching make sure and line up the live bait for your fishing trip.
The water temperature is still a little low for this time of the year and this has held off the Spanish mackerel and Jack Crevalle, but it won’t be long before they start to show up. The beach is holding a lot of oversized Red Fish, these fish are a ton of fun when you can find them and they’re hungry. This is all sight fishing, you have to find the fish and cast to them. They are in too shallow of water to try and catch them any other way. My bait of choice for these monster fish is a SPRO bucktail jig. The ¾ ounce prime jig in the Magic Bus color is by all means my favorite lure.
Pompano had an early run, but have slowed way down over the last 5 or so days. The water temperature needs to warm up a little more and these fish should show up in big numbers. I have caught a few, but nothing like what it should be right now.
The slot red fishing in the bay has really picked up over the last few days. It went from catching one every now and then to catching 10 on last Saturday’s trip and 15 on today’s trip . Half of those being good keeper sized fish and the other half being undersized, but soon these slots will be feeding in high gear.
The Speckled Trout bite hasn’t started yet, there are a few being caught occasionally, but we need a few more days of this 80 degree weather to get these fish interested in feeding on a regular basis.
Fishing is a lot more fun than barbecues, watermelon and baseball combined!
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