June has been a great fishing month so far and the weather has been extremely good except for 2 or 3 days. The red snapper have not slowed down and appear to be more and more than anybody thought there would be.
The inshore fishing is coming on very good and should increase during July. The speckled trout will be in the shallower waters particularly in the early morning and later in the afternoon. The redfish are getting so large it will be hard to catch one small enough to keep. Fish around the ships channel buoys and range marker in the deeper water and it will be hard to leave a bait for more than a moment. The whiting and sand trout are really running the beaches and biting on almost anything you want to put out, especially shrimp and fresh cut bait.
Offshore fishing for July should continue to be very good especially now that we can bring home those large gag grouper that we have been throwing back. All indications are that we have a really great crop of gag grouper. The scamp and red grouper have been showing up in good numbers offshore. It will be august before we can bring home any of those large amberjack but they just keep jumping on our live grouper bait. The wahoo and mahi mahi are showing up in pretty good numbers at certain times. Another fish that we are finding more of this year in the deeper waters than usual is that black fin tuna. I expect we will see more and more of that fish in the coming summer and fall. In all it appears that July will be an especially good fishing month. We will only have to look out for some bad weather.
Don’t forget to file a float plan, and let somebody know when you are going to return.