Ft. Pierce Inshore - Offshore Report

[Captain Joe Ward]

November 15, 2007

INSHORE - The fishing has been good all this week with plenty of action coming from the bottom fish like sandperch, sheepshead, croakers, jacks and a lot of under size mutton's. Just make sure you don't mistake a mutton snapper for a lane snapper. Try the area bridges or the channel edges just to the south of the South Bridge -- just look for all the boats. Use a live shrimp or pieces of fresh dead shrimp -- both of these have been working great. I got reports of some big trout for catch and release action up around the Round Island area as well as some slot size redfish. Soft plastic baits fished slow will find most of the fish. The snook fishing remains steady with most of the fish reported not in the slot of 28 to 32 inches. It's either the fish are too big or too small. The few keeper fish that were reported came from the Ft. Pierce Inlet and caught on a live bait.

OFFSHORE - The offshore is still a little on the rough side for most boats but, the boats that are venturing out are reporting sailfish action to the south of the Ft. Pierce Inlet in 100 to 130 feet of water but they have been scattered at best. Look around the 90 Foot Bar for kingfish and they have been taking live baits. The party boats are reporting good snapper, small grouper and seabass in 60 to 80 feet of water. Cut bait is proving most of the action.

BRAGGING BOARD - I got an e-mail and pictures from Josh Kersey about a trout his fiancee caught on a recent visit to Ft. Pierce. John and his fiancee -- Lauren Phares were staying a Josh's dad's house at Faber Cove. Here is what Josh wrote in his e-mail -- It was late and I went to sleep because I had a long day of fishing planed the following morning. My fiancee Lauren was determined to catch a snook that kept swimming under our dock. About 1:30 am she stormed into the house demanding I go down to the dock to pull in the fish she had just caught. I quickly got up and ran down to the dock (in my brief’s) to find Lauren’s spinning rod in the holder with a rather large trout dangling on the end of the line. I measured the trout to between 34” & 35” long (the biggest I have ever seen in person). We had a few great photos, a measurement and a great story – so we decided to release the beast back to his home under our dock. I plan to have a fiberglass replica mount of the trout.

If you would like to report a catch you can e-mail me at cward11605@aol.com or call me at 772-201-5770. You can also reach me on the web at www.captjoeward.com.

Capt. Joe Ward
Capt. Joe's River Charters