A unique website dedicated to fishing information from Florida's Northern Big Bend. This includes the area from the Econfina River west to the Apalachicola River
Use this area to post inshore fishing reports from the area. Please try to include relevant information such as:
Location, date, time, water conditions, weather conditions, baits, techniques, species caught, etc.
We fished the incoming tide this afternoon at Steinhatchee. Water temp was 62°. Fish were hard to find on the flats. We fished a few deep cuts where the flats dropped from 3' to 7'. Couldn't buy a bite. We slowly trolled out to the edge of the flats trying to cover various depths and locate some fish. Saw a few schools of redfish but no bites. We started running back to the river and came up on a big bait school getting blown up. We threw a Cotton Cordell Redfin in the middle of the school and hooked up with this Bonito
We made it back to the river around 4:00. We caught a few trout at the mouth but the bite was slow. At 5 pm, we started slaying them. Keeper trout nearly every cast. We caught 15-20 and kept 9. The biggest was 22". The majority of the trout were caught on a red 3/8 ounce jighead paired with a 4" gulp swimming mullet in white. The larger trout were caught a saltwater rattle trap.
We filleted them up and took them down to fiddler's for dinner. Donald approved.
Last edited by jsaunders on December 27th, 2017, 12:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.
My boat got good freshwater washdown on the trip home this afternoon thanks to the rain showers. Still sprayed it down with Salt-off and washed out the motor though.
DixieReb wrote:I wondered if anything was biting there, we used to kill them there in December after it got cold. Man, those trout fillets look good!!
It's a hot bite right now, when they're coming in the mouth of the river. Non existent bite when they're not. The back half of the high tide seemed to be the ticket that past couple days. I think the trout are still a little confused with this back and forth weather we're having. I'm ready for it to get cold and stay cold so they'll be easier to target consistently.
Those trout were delicious. Didn't even need seasoning.
Bolt79 wrote:Great report! Thinking about heading over to the Hatch tomorrow and give the river a try.
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Channel marker 26 was where we caught most of our trout. Let me know how you do.
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Didn’t do well at all...got skunked. Tied Dallas creek...nothing, then hit the flats south of the channel...again nothing, then headed over to marker number 26 and again, nothing. I’m done with Steinhatchee, always do better at Horseshoe.
Bolt79 wrote:Great report! Thinking about heading over to the Hatch tomorrow and give the river a try.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Channel marker 26 was where we caught most of our trout. Let me know how you do.
Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
Didn’t do well at all...got skunked. Tied Dallas creek...nothing, then hit the flats south of the channel...again nothing, then headed over to marker number 26 and again, nothing. I’m done with Steinhatchee, always do better at Horseshoe.
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I'm surprised you didn't get anything at the river mouth, especially with the colder weather the past couple days. I figured they'd be in there even thicker than a few days ago.
Bolt79 wrote:Great report! Thinking about heading over to the Hatch tomorrow and give the river a try.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Channel marker 26 was where we caught most of our trout. Let me know how you do.
Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
Didn’t do well at all...got skunked. Tied Dallas creek...nothing, then hit the flats south of the channel...again nothing, then headed over to marker number 26 and again, nothing. I’m done with Steinhatchee, always do better at Horseshoe.