Spring Fishing Report
As the wind continues to blow we have only been able to make it offshore a few days in the last two weeks. Fortunately when we did go, the fish were still hungry!
Inshore and at the rocks the water was mixed between clear and dirty green. There has been plenty of visible bait along with Jack Crevalle and Kingfish from the Port Aransas jetties to the rigs in 50-80 feet. The Kingfish bite was slow at the rocks with only a handful being caught. I think we will continue to see the Kingfish moving in a little closer as it warms up.
We have also been seeing shrimp boats working in 30-70 feet with some nice Blacktip and Spinner sharks following close behind. For bait we generally use Ribbonfish or cut bait like Bonita or Jackfish. They usually aren’t too picky and will try a bite of anything in you put out! There have also been a handful of Ling(Cobia) making an appearance and we expect to start seeing more soon.
Water temperatures offshore 30-50 miles are still hovering right around 71 degrees with clean, green water at the surface and some blue water trying to mix in. On the calmer days we have seen a few weedlines and rips forming in 120 to 180 feet of water holding some decent schools of chicken dolphin.
Further offshore at the rigs 40-50 miles offshore the Wahoo bite has been on fire! I like to pull a combination of baits for Wahoo that cover depths from 30 feet up to the surface. If you have ballyhoo they work great with an islander. Marauders and deep diving plugs are also great baits.
On a side note, we received some news from NOAA who recently announced that we will not have a split Amberjack season this year. Unlike last year there will be no Amberjack season in the month of May. August 1 through October 31, 2018 we will be able to harvest these fish. With no pressure on them this summer the later season should be great!
We have also been informed that Federal for hire charter boats will have a little longer Red Snapper season this year running from June 1 through August 1.
As of now, the forecast is for the wind to continue and more fronts coming our way this week. We will be doing our routine boat maintenance while we wait for a calm day to get back out. We’ll let you know what we see!