August 12, 2020
By: Bill Aucoin
SAINT PETERSBURG, Fla.- Welcome to Angler Insider sharing the best spots and plots to catch fresh and saltwater gamefish each week in Central Florida.
The Brief
- Weather: Hot, humid. Isolated afternoon rain. Some lightning.
- Wade fishers, check shoreline bacteria levels at Florida Healthy Beaches.
- Revive spent fish by moving them back and worth so water flows through their gills.
- Release all snook, redfish, and spotted seatrout south of Hernando/Pasco line.
- Keep up to five mangrove snappers 10 inches or longer.
- Keep up to five bass but only one 16 inches or longer.
- Keep up to 50 panfish of any length.
- Keep up to 25 crappie (speckled perch) per person.
- Covid-19: Keep distance, wash hands, etc.
- TrophyCatch salute: Raymond Flowers. Bass: 10-lbs, 8-oz. Lake Hancock. August 9.
Saltwater
Snook large and small are in topwater-assault mode at first and last light. Make long casts with a walk-the-dog lure into fast-moving currents. Retrieve it parallel to shorelines and past ambush-like structure. Big speckled seatrout are blowing up on topwaters, too. They’re deeper on grass flats punctuated with sandy potholes. If you want mangrove snapper for dinner focus on areas with little baitfish casting a small spoon. That’ll work for redfish, too, which are more likely swimming with mullet on the move. You’ll see little sharks, too. They’re fun to catch. Release them cautiously.
Freshwater
Summer rains brings oxygen to our waters and they bring on brief bass and bream bites. If there’s no lightning around put on your rain gear and get out there and fish. The bite doesn’t last long. When the action stops it’s usually because fish have moved to a deeper layer of water with more dissolved oxygen. Your sonar can help locate that layer between warm and cool water. Watch the screen for blobs of baitfish suspended in the water column. That’s the layer. Bass and bream are close by. Use a very light leader for bream, slowly moving a small jig or spoon in the zone. Tease bass with a too-good-to-pass-up plastic worm fished slowly near weedy, grassy edges in the higher O2 zone.
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