What's up everyone and welcome back to my monthly fishing report. Notice this time I said monthly and not bi-monthly. Apparently I forgot to provide you guys with a first half of October fishing report so my apologies for that. October has been a solid month so far although thanks to more than likely the super El Niño over in the Pacific It's been a breezy and warmer than normal October. With that being said, there was a slight delay in the mullet migration into and through Biscayne Bay but after that slight delay It was on fire and all kinds of species were feasting early morning on these hapless mullet. Also delayed was the migration of Pilchard's into the bay, but towards the end of the month large schools started to show up and my last charter of the month I was able to Castnet enough bait for the trip and I was able to do that right at the Marina. How easy is that!
Early morning has been solid for juvenile tarpon in South Biscayne Bay and my approach has been pretty simple. I have been working shorelines, preferably in the lee of any breeze, and throwing top water plugs. It's been really common the see fish rolling in big numbers, but even in the absence of rolling fish, they haven't been able to stay stealthy too long because they've been crushing the schools of mullet as they cruise down the shoreline. I prefer to throw top water plugs at these fish because I have found that it really stands out amongst hundreds of fleeing mullet as opposed to throwing soft plastics or some other kind of artificial lure that doesn't make a lot of commotion. On some trips we've hooked 5 to 7 Tarpon per morning, but as it is in Tarpon fishing, a lot of them have been coming off on the first few jumps. Also mixed in with these tarpon have been snook, and it is pretty obvious that they are snook as they are coming clear out out of the water attacking mullet. However, the tarpon have been more aggressive and have been beating the snook to the lures every single time. That's not a bad problem to have!
The bone fishing has been pretty steady this entire month however, the last trip of the month was slow for bonefish which was unusual because we were coming off of a full moon so these fish should've been back in full force. We have had huge king tides, and the tide from yesterday was almost 3 feet above normal so I suspect that has been part of the issue of why bonefish was slow yesterday. They may have been way too spread out to be able to efficiently locate them. There have been some permit around as well, and that has lasted a little bit longer than normal due to the warmer than normal month of October.
As we move onto easier species, there have been tons of jacks and ladyfish keeping clients busy for those that just want to catch fish and have a good time as opposed to invest most or all of the trip into trophy species. This has been a lot of fun with tons of crazy action and at times I've had clients tell me they need to take a rest because they were worn out.
The finger channels have been rather consistent with mutton snappers, yellow jacks, mangrove snappers and a variety of other species. This has been a lot of fun, but the boatt of choice for crossing the bay in these windy conditions has been my 22 Pathfinder as opposed to my Hewes flats boat. The key here has been casting a lot of pilchards in order to live chum and as I mentioned earlier these baits are starting to migrate down so it's been much easier to locate and cast net enough bait to make things really fun.
That's what I have for this month. I hope you guys have been well. Happy Halloween and stay tuned for my first half of November report coming in on November 16.
Capt. Mo Estevez
Follow me on Instagram @MiamiBonefishing @MiamiBayFishingCharters
