Here is your updated July 2017 Fishing Report for East Central Florida

Published: Sat, 07/01/17

EDITION No. 95a

Updated July 2017 Fishing Report for East Central Florida

Speckled Sea Trout

The speckled sea trout bite in the Mosquito Lagoon is reported to be the best we have had all year.

The fish are hitting free lined live shrimp and live pigfish and are holding on the deeper grass flats in 2 or 3 feet of slightly dirtier or off color water. If you can find these conditions along with a lot of baitfish, you've hit the jackpot.

The areas that are holding good fish right now are Tiger Shoals, the East West Bar, the Tournament Bar, the False Channel Bar, the North South Bar, and the dropoff on the West side of Cucumber Island.

"Oink" your pigfish when you're fishing with them to get more bites.

(An Oink is when you give the pigfish two or three tugs when it gets into the grass. The pigfish will Oink (grunt) and attract a trout.)

Grouper

Because the cold water upwellings that we normally have came in earlier than usual, it has been messing with the grouper bite that we normally have in the wrecks and reefs between 180 and 250 feet of water from Sebastian to Ponce Inlet.

As soon as the water begins to warm up to normal temperatures for this time of the year, we should start seeing more grouper in the 20 to 30 pound category coming across the gunnels.

The baits of choice have been live croaker, grunt and pinfish.

Tight Lines!

jneila@earthlink.net

jneila@earthlink.net

Tarpon

Nearshore:

The Tarpon action along the beach this past week has been hit or miss.

The tarpon are holding in less than 20 feet of water all the way from Vero Beach to Ponce Inlet.

There have been some really good spots where the tarpon have been holding in tight to the beach and bunching up on the balls of bait, but they have not been running up and down the beaches like they normally do. There are some vast beach areas that are completely void of tarpon.

Instead of burning up your fuel running up and down the beaches, look for slightly warmer water in the 77 to 78 degree F. range with concentrations of bait fish and that's where the tarpon will be.

River and Creeks:

Right now juvenile Tarpon up 40 inches are all over the creeks, marsh canals, and shallows of the Indian River and Mosquito Lagoon.

This afternoon after the rain strom, East Gator Creek had several pods of juvenile tarpon rolling in several areas.

They were shy but I hooked a couple on a ZMann paddletail bait on a 3/8 oz. jighead.

Several in the 3 to 4 foot category were rolling in the shallows of Catfish Creek but they had lockjaw.