Here is your updated July 8, 2017 Fishing Report for East Central Florida

Published: Sat, 07/08/17

EDITION No. 95b

Updated July 2017 Fishing Report for East Central Florida

Speckled Sea Trout

For the past few weeks, the Mosquito Lagoon is definitely where you want to be to hook into a speckled sea trout.

The deeper, grassy areas with slightly dirty water is where you are going to find the fish.

The 4" Saltwater Assassin "But Naked" Sea Shad pattern, on a 1/8 oz. Assassin spring lock jighead has been the bait of choice for most anglers who have been catching the larger sea trout.

If you're targeting larger sea trout, look for congregations of finger mullet and pitch a live pigfish along the channel edges, in the sloughs, and bars. Don't forget to "oink" the pigfish every once in a while.

Van Slough, and along the 2 to 3 feet deep edges of Tiger Shoal are good places to fish right now for larger and better numbers of fish.

The smaller sea trout have also hitting free lined live shrimp under a popping cork in approximately the same areas.

Most of the areas that were holding good fish last week are still producing and with the full moon coming up Sunday, this weekend should be a killer.

The East West Bar, Tournament Bar, the False Channel Bar, the North South Bar, and the dropoff on the West side of Cucumber Island are still hot areas to target.

Swordfish

Some specialty anglers out of Port Canaveral have been making the 50 to 90 mile runs to target swordfish in 1400 to 2000 feet of water with a great deal of success.

If deep dropping with electric reels, and up to 12 pounds of weight to get down to the bottom is your type of fishing, then you can expect to catch swordfish in the 20 to 150 pound category right now, along with a variety of other deep water species.

Large chunk baits have been producing the most bites for swordfish.

The Pom Pomfret (Atlantic Pomfret) has been a staple for deep droppers lately.

The deepwater species reaches a length of 40" and is reported to be great eating.

Tight Lines!

jneila@earthlink.net

jneila@earthlink.net

Summer Flounder

Inshore, we have been experiencing a decent mid-summer flounder bite this year out of Canaveral, Ponce Inlet, and even on some of the wrecks out of Sebastian.

The guys have been dropping shrimp or finger mullet, and the closer we get to the full moon, the better the tides, the better the bite is going to be.

Inshore

Inshore from Edgewater to Oak Hill and even into the Mosquito Lagoon, the channel edges and the spoil islands throughout that entire area are going to be good for flounder.

Because of the tide from Sebastian, Palm Bay all the way down to Vero should also be good for flounder for the next few weeks.

The flounder have been moving into the shallows at night and fishermen are catching them with live shrimp, live mud minnows, and live finger mullet.

A lot of anglers put them on a little hookup jighead or an assassin jighead to cover more ground.

Most of the flounder that are being caught right now have been running in the 2 to 5 pound class

Mangrove Snapper

With the full moon coming up this Sunday night, the mangrove snapper bite offshore in 70 to 110 feet of water should be off the charts this weekend.

Get out on some structure and drop a chum bag to get a nice slick going to get the fish up in the water column, and once you get them on top, drift a chunk bait on a little 1/0 or 2/0 size VMC coastal live bait hook with a light fluorocarbon leader into the chum slick to get hooked up.

Mangrove Snapper have good eyes, so keep your leaders light and long.

Mangrove snapper caught during the full moon period this weekend are expected to be averaging in the 5 to 10 pound class.