Late october fishing report ponce inlet

I only got offshore once this past week due to high seas, but I didn’t have any luck for the 2 hours I spent trolling in about 250-300 feet of water. I cruised back a little and found some nice reef fish in 165-190 feet of water. Big triggerfish came up one after another at one spot on the ledge. As we got dialed in, sharks heard the commotion and joined the party although they didn’t eat our catch. They did mange to shut down the bite for that area for a while. I cruised to another good bottom mark on the ledge and dropped again. Porgies came up one after another before the sharks came again. We used squid on chicken rigs. Red snapper were obviously part of the mix also. We played that game for hours before heading back with a fairly full cooler, not of red snapper.


Inshore the bite has been really good. I have fished the docks further south in the river and have had good luck on cobia style jigs (#demojigs) for the snook at night. I love any of them that have chartreuse but they all glow in the dark and look great at night. Guys have been known to get grouper on them also but I haven’t had that luck in the river yet. Trout were caught at night as well on glow in the dark lures. Run the lure through the lighted area under the dock and hold on tight. Sometimes you really need to pitch the bait way up under the dock to get it exactly in the right place. A lot of my luck with night fishing at the docks has to do with proper placement of the bait. The bridges have been producing snook well over 30 inches at night as well. During the morning I have caught snook and slot redfish in the mangroves on shrimp and paddle tail jigs. Get your shrimp way up under the mangrove with this high water so that they can come find it without coming out of the mangrove too much. The swell looks to get fairly large (5-6 feet) for the rest of the week and weekend, and remain out of the east. The wind will remain out of the east at 10-20 knots before a front on Saturday switches up the pattern, potentially. Obviously I will be watching that for a window to get offshore. Have a great weekend guys and stay safe with these windy conditions. #bvofishing