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Fishing Jacksonville & Mayport
Capt. Bryan Russell
December 1, 2006
Jacksonville - Saltwater Fishing Report
DECEMBER REPORT
OFFSHORE/NEARSHORE
Well I'm well past being tired of the wind! I'm chompin' at the bit to get back offshore.........My last trip I found some nice 11-14 lb. Red snapper within 6 miles of the beach.
We had a nice box of fish including 4 nice snapper, 15 lb. Red grouper and some very nice seabass. All on a 4 hour trip in the evening.
If theres going to be a good inshore snapper/grouper bite like last fall, then it will be now (if the wind cooperates). Also The big greenhead seabass should be stacking up on the live rocky bottom. A good tactic for them is a double chicken rig with a small bucktail in pink or chartruese in front of the hook. Bait up with local cuttlefish or peices of squid and DRIFT live hard bottom. Drifting is the key to finding the big sea bass. Last year at this time we limited out on every trip with seabees in the 14-17" range. Those are some seriously good eating fish!
There has been 2 things this fall that have been strange. First is the absolutely HUGE number of throwback snapper. We have caught no less than 40- 50 and as high as 80 Red snapper per trip! And up until 2 weeks ago, very few keepers. Lots of small gags as well.
Where are all the nice fish like last year? One thing consistant about fishing.............INconsistancy!
I hope this bodes well for future snapper fishing.
The second strange thing is the large numbers of stud cobia on the party grounds. Lots of fish over 40 lb. and up to 60 lbs. Have been caught recently.
Look for the inshore reefs to start to load up with flounder and bull redfish as they move to thier winter staging areas.
INSHORE
What do you want? Redfish, Flounder ,Trout, sheepshead, Drum?
Take your pick and bring plenty of different baits, and you can have a nice cooler of fish right now. Nice trout are biting in the river and ditch, But you have to weed through shorts to get your limit. Redfish are all over the creeks and jetty rocks. Sheepshead are showing in force at the big and little jetties. We are nearing the end of one of the best flounder seasons in recent memory. Lots of fish caught with a large number of fish over 10 lbs. reported.
The river has plenty of big Virginia croakers along the channel drop, as well as Black drum.
When heading out on your next trip, take along live shrimp to fish from float rigs and casting a jig and shrimp. Take some fiddlers and clams for the sheepshead. And i never fish inshore without some nice fresh dead shrimp. I tip jigs with it , and like to fish it on the bottom for drum , croakers and yellowmouth trout.
You can't catch dinner sitting on the couch watching football! Get the boat out of mothballs! Now is the best fishing of the whole year, and over the next month it will continue to get better!
Give me a call to book a great day on the water!
Tight lines and screamin' drags, Capt. Bryan
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