January 2011
Sebastian Inlet, Beaches & Offshore
Kingfish numbers are back along the high bar area and around the Pines, which is North of Sebastian Inlet in about 50-60 ft of water. The kings are mostly 8-12 lbs with an occasional 20lb smoker sneaking through your baits and leaving you with a racing heartbeat and usually a bird’s nest on the spool. Make sure if you use live baits to run them with a stinger hook to help keep the short strikes down. Live bait is very scarce and you need to make everyone count! Cobia have been mixed in with the bag and most of the fish are being caught on the reefs, so be ready with a buck tail or live bait if one shows up.
Also look for a few Bonita or Spanish mackerel along the surface popping baits. If you want to troll some spoons, keep a watch out for a bill slicing thought the water behind you ballyhoo, as a few sailfish are being picked up on the troll. Most of the deep blue water trolling has been tough with North East winds blowing this month. The days to get out will be few and far between, so if the flags drop, turn the bow east and drag the new lures you got from Santa.
Good numbers of blue fish are coming over the rails at Sebastian Inlet as the water temperature continues to drop. Silver spoons, shiny mackerel jigs or gotcha jigs need to be tied on with a wire leader and swivel to keep a financial loss of tackle to a minimum. Seems like any thing with teeth will find the mono leader and next thing you know, you are left with an empty tackle box, while the other anglers are pulling fish in left and right.
The surf fishing has been pretty good to start this year. The lack of sand fleas is really slowing things down. Even the live bait calms are hard to come by with all the freezing cold weather up north freezing the water and keeping them from harvesting the live clams on a regular basis. Pompano have been fairly regular on the beach and have been coming mostly on the tide changes. Whiting and bluefish has also been a mainstay and are taking clams and shrimp.
The Whitey’s Flounder Tournament has come to an end with Brian Banchy of Melbourne Beach holding first place since early November with a 10lb flounder, Second Place was Phillip Nungesser of Palm Bay, with a 9- 3/4 lbs. flounder and Greg Kirschner, from Indian Harbor Beach with the Third place fish at 7- 3/4 lbs. Thanks again to all the anglers who got involved this year. There were a good number of participants signed up for the tournament this year and we also saw the most fish brought to the scales then years past. The flounder run seemed very steady for the last few months, starting back in November and still continuing to date. It is not over yet, the fish are still moving through the inlet. So pack up the new gear and drive on down to the inlet to fish a tide change and see what is biting.
Hope every one has a wonderful New Year and that 2011 is much warmer……….
Whitey's Bait & Tackle
321-724-14409030 S Highway A1a
Melbourne Beach, FL 32951
captstovall@whiteysonline.comwww.whiteysonline.com/
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