Fall fishing pattern starts up, seasonal species arrive
Fishing around Anna Maria Island is holding into its fall pattern with the arrival of seasonal species.
Kingfish are making a showing along the beaches of Anna Maria as well as the artificial reefs. Slow trolling large shiners or threadfin herring on a light wire rig is producing a bite. Numerous Spanish mackerel are showing off the beaches, where anchoring and chumming with live shiners is the key to fire up these speedy fish.
Moving to the flats, we are finally starting to see large schools of redfish moving in. I’m seeing these schools “pop up” while running the outer bars during low tides. It’s smart to carry a couple of gold spoons for the approach on these schools of reds, as they can sometimes be spooky and unapproachable. The gold spoon is heavy enough to enable the angler to make long casts, which comes in handy when you can’t get the boat close to the fish.
On one of my recent with Southernaire charters, I had a great morning on snook, trout and redfish. It was the morning of the king tide and the full moon. I was joined by Geno Lynn of Bradenton and his friends Jim and Carla Beardslee of Decantur, Alabama.
The morning started a little slow as that flood tide came in, and we were able to fish up close to a mangrove shoreline. Within minutes of setting the anchor, we had bent rods.
At first the snook were keeping us busy. We even had times when all three anglers were hooked up at once.
After a good dose of snook, we started hooking into redfish one after another. The biggest red — a 24-incher — kept Carla busy for a good five minutes before she could reel the fish close enough to the boat for me to net him.
After the wave of redfish, the bite calmed down slightly, although we still managed to catch more snook and reds. And we even started getting some nice keeper-sized trout in the mix. Needless to say, Geno, Jim and Carla were thrilled with the bite they experienced. They also got some bragging rights, as all three got their “inshore slam” — a snook, redfish and trout.
