By Capt. Nestor Alvisa
Hooked on Flamingo Charter
HookedonFlamingo.com 786.387.2443
As we get into the months of May and June and into our summertime patterns, our water temperatures start to warm up. During this time of year one of the things I love to do is running out into the gulf and covering as much water as possible trying to mix it up as much as I can.
I’ll usually start my mornings out around middle cape if I have a falling tide, I’ll start looking for some tarpon or free floating tripletail. My clients will begin by casting sub surface plugs looking for the bite while I’m setting up two rods off the transom with either mullet or pinfish. I’ll also keep a light spinning rod nearby, with either a live shrimp or small artificial, in case we run into a floating tripletail.
If I have high water in the mornings, starting off fishing the shorelines around Lake Ingraham or up the coast for snook and redfish would be my first choice. During this month we tend to do very well on both snook and redfish when fishing a bobber rigged with a live shrimp on either a circle hook or a small jighead. Another thing that works very well under the bobber is a Gulp shrimp or curly grub tail, white or chartreuse in color.
As the sun gets higher and the water gets hotter throughout the day, I like to push out to the gulf and fish around structure. I tend to find a lot of nice mangrove snapper, some snook, permit and cobia out there. For bait I will use live or cut pinfish on the bottom using a knocker rig, blue crabs for the permit. Then I’ll free-line one or two rods off the back of the boat and leave one close by ready to cast if we see them. Light and heavy bucktail jigs are always good to have on hand to pitch at any floating cobia or to work on the bottom.
