Stuart Inshore Report: 03-01-06

[catch22]

The last couple of weeks we have spent several trips sitting right outside the St. Lucie Inlet catching an assortment of fish including pompano, lane and mangrove snappers,bluefish, sheephead, jacks, blue runners, black margates, and mackerel mainly on shrimp and trollrites. We did run south to Peck's Lake twice recently only spending a short time there. Lot's of netters around but nobody was catching much. The spanish bite this year has been weird. I'm sure if you wait them out, eventually they will turn on but on a four hour trip I need to find fish fast.

Inside the inlet has been decent with ladyfish, pompano, bluefish, goliath grouper and jacks. Both incoming and outgoing have been producing. Yes the water turned brown again a few weeks ago but not quite as bad as it was in December. We are still recieving a nice flushout on incoming tide which to me is important.

The bridges have been hot for snook mainly in the evening and early morning. The catwalks on the Jensen Causeway are open. Live shrimp or DOA terrorize on the bottom have been working well. Some trout around the docks in between the causeways but it seems the best bite is north of the power lines where the bait is more concentrated.

We did catch 5 more tripletail since the last report. All the fish have been between 6 and 10 pounds. Look for the larger ones over 20 pounds to show around May. We have been mixing it up with shrimp and soft rubber baits for the tripletail. The trout bite up to the power lines has been slow, however when the water gets rough on the flats, try throwing a redtail hawk and crank it fast.

All in all the fishing has been decent the past few months. We are not quite back to "pre hurricane" numbers but the water has been cleaner (except for the inlet the past few weeks) and baitfish are slowly returning. It's good to see birds diving again.

Tight Lines,

Capt. Bob Bushholz

http://www.catch22fish.com

(772) 225-6436