Picture: Lyle Snyder from Ohio enjoyed a great day of catch and release snook fishing while down for his daughters wedding.

Stirred up water conditions

Tropical storm Cindy developed out in the Gulf this past week and brought a few days of windy conditions but once it past well to the west of us it took all the rain with it for a few days. Southerly winds once the storm passed gave us big high tides and had all our beaches really stirred up pushing dirty sandy water into the passes. This only made our summertime pass fishery a little more challenging with the tide just crazy fast at times and hard to fish.

Pass fishing continues to be the best bite going on with a great mixed bag of fish. Snook of all sizes kept my clients smiling all week and we also caught a few bonus over the slot sized redfish. When the tide was ripping finding a edie or moving around in the pass to locate a place the tide was not quite so fast was the toughest part of catching these fish. Once you found the right set up even though the water looked just nasty and stirred up snook still had no problem finding a live bait. On one memorable trip this week we caught and released 7 snook over 30 inches and lost at least that many again all within the first hour of a tide change. Our catch and release snook fishery right now can only be described as “As good as it gets”

Working some favorite mangrove shorelines on the near perfect high tide and south wind set up for redfish was ok fishing too. If you moved around it was certainly possible to get a few upper to over the slot reds but this bite took a lot more work than catching the snook that are just stacked in all our passes. The stirred up water from the rough conditions brought the good trout bite we have had the last few weeks to a sudden holt and also stopped any attempts for most anglers planning to tarpon fish. Tropical storms and fast changing weather conditions are all just part of our summer fishing pattern.

Catching bait became a whole lot harder this week with wind and dirty water. Catching enough pinfish to just go fishing has become a grind and is taking a lot more time and effort than it did just a week ago. Decent sized shiners have all but disappeared and the ones that we are catching now have become very small requiring a 1/4 inch mesh cast net. This is normal for our summers and was just a matter of time till it happened. Cut bait fishing is great option especially for redfish under the mangroves.

I cannot state enough how important it is to watch the weather and use a local weather radar app while out on the water. Its amazing how quickly our summer thunderstorms can build and how fast and unpredictable they can be. f your along way from safety things can get scary fast. Always keep a eye to the sky and if you are in doubt  make the safe choice by having a exit plan as our lightening is no joke. Weather forecasts this time of year are very vague to say the least so like we all do look at weather radar before heading out.