It’s time to Spring into action after a long, windy winter. The bait has been scarce through March, but we’ll hopefully see more in April. Be on the lookout for pilchards along the causeways and Sailfish Flats. The threadfins can be along Gilbert Shoal and Bullshark Barge. Small croaker baitfish can be caught around the inlet flats, and bridges using shrimp pieces on small dropper rigs.
The cobia bite has been great at the Sandpile for anglers chumming up sharks and pitching baits under them. We could start to see some permit show up at the Pierce Shoal just outside the Powerplant Boils to drift live crabs. Another spot to try on the way is the Shoal Buoy located south of the Boils.
The snook bite has been mediocre back in the St. Lucie with the cold water temps. We’ve mostly caught small snook 15-25 inchers along the mangrove shorelines casting flies and lures. The big snook seem to be only sitting low at the marinas and bridges. These snook can be caught with live diving baitfish or First Light Jigs. We sell live baitfish (3 to 6 inch mud minnows) at Stuart Angler. These baitfish like to dive down to the bottom or swim under big boats and docks where the big fish are hiding.. As the weather warms up, we should see the large snook feeding more as they move out towards the St. Lucie Inlet to spawn in July.
The Spring pompano bite can be fun for wading the Sailfish Flats casting tandem-rigged bucktail jigs or DOA CAL jigs. I’ve done well during the last 2 hours of outgoing tide looking for pompano that school up in some potholes. Doing this also produces flounder, trout, redfish, sheepshead, and croakers. Lots of these same fish are aslo being caught at the Causeways bridges dropping shrimp and sandfleas. There are still lots of pompano being caught surf-casting off the beaches with incoming tide.