Jacksonville Inshore Fishing Forecast

Fishing Forecast:

Tie on your favorite topwater plug and get to casting, gator trout will be lurking around the bait pods along the ICW. First light, outgoing tides and schools of mullet is the formula for a successful morning outing for trout. Working topwater and sinking plugs parallel to dropoffs and around creek mouths will guarantee success! Don’t over look deeper creek holes as “Gator Trout” can be taking residence.

Redfish will also be patrolling the shell banks of the ICW working the bait pods during low tides. Deeper flats that are holding mullet will have redfish shadowing mullet pods looking to eat the shrimp and crabs the mullet kick up. A FishBites Extreme watermelon color jerkbait on a Slayer 4/0 Penetrator 3/16oz. hook is a great search bait for flats fishing. Oyster bed hopping and casting to spartina grass edges will also produce strikes as long as the mullet are around.

Flounder should be chewing steady on all stages of the tides in the flats but outgoing being my favorite. Live finger mullet with a few small split shots or using a FishBite Paddle tail slowly bounced across the bottom will produce flatties. Jig fisherman will target deeper dropoffs with mudminnows or finger mullet. Doormats around the inlets will fall for 5-7 inch mullet on a fish finder rig.

Big Blue fish should continue to chew around Matanzas Inlet, they will bite just about any lure that resembles a mullet, first light is best for numbers. Jacks will start to show up as well and being caught at first light with surface poppers or live bait in deeper water later in the day. Ladyfish will be stacking up outgoing tides busting baitfish in the bigger creeks that will keep the kids occupied. Light jigs and paddle tails or live shrimp will get slammed by lady fish on every cast once you find them.


Well it seems as my favorite way to fish (sight fishing) is now a thing of the past its time to adapt with the change that Spring will bring as its only 2 days away. On recent trips I have noticed less schools of Redfish and more schools of mullet invading our inshore waters as the temps continue to climb.

At least one of my last charters while sight fishing will be a memorable one that will be hard to top. Tommy and I had charters this day and we worked together to corner a very large school of Redfish that were all in the upper slot category.
After it was all said and the done and the dust cleared we landed over 77 upper slot redfish in just over an hour. Between both boats we had 2 fly fisherman and 3 spin fisherman all hooked up at once several times.