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I am heading down to The Island later on this week (Thu evening) and want to fish around the island. I will be trying to fish Thursday evening and early Friday morning. Would like to target reds and trout, any advice on lures/baits, methods and locations would be appreciated. I usually fish out of St. Marks, so input on launching and navigating would be great too. (17' Key West CC) Thanks in advance for any advice.

You can put in at the bridge, but that ramp can be tricky, especially if you are flying solo. You can also put in at the State Park, which has two ramps. I prefer the second ramp. You can also put in just after you cross the bridge at the "oystermen's landing". Watch your tides for the oystermen landing. Since this appears to be your first time launching down there, I would head to the State Park and try to launch/pull out when there is plenty of water.

I prefer to fish down on the east end, so I use the State Park ramps. Standard rigs/lures/baits will work on that end. If I am "targeting" reds, I head west and fish behind the Plantation and the oyster bars down that way.

Good Luck!

Thanks for the advice. Any navigation issues on the east end? (Sand bars and oyster bars, etc.)

fishing coach wrote:Thanks for the advice. Any navigation issues on the east end? (Sand bars and oyster bars, etc.)

Watch the oyster bars coming out of the 2nd ramp at SGI. Once you make it out of the little "channel" and you can make a turn to the right, you are pretty good to go (just hang 30 yards or so off the sand at that point). Once you turn right again, heading east towards Dog Island, you have pretty smooth sailing, there is one sand/oyster bar right after you make that turn, but I "think" it has a stake on it, if not, the chances of hitting it are kind of slim anyways. Once you head down east, look for good patches of grass and start fishing. I usually fish from the turn to head east (second right noted in this thread) all the way down until the sandbar that sticks out down around the campground. If you look at a map, this will make sense.

I hope it works out for you. Take Care,

Chris

I second what Scoop (Chris) said. Great advice. Last time I was down there the stake was gone from the sandbar, just stay within 30-50 yards of shore when you make the east turn on the north side of the park and you'll be fine. There's a deep hole on the northeast side of the bar where my father-in-law and I caught a bunch of croaker and sand trout last fall, not sure what might be there now.

Two additional points. First, when you are leaving the "channel" from the second ramp heading west, stick very close to the last sand spit on your right just before you turn north. It's very, very shallow on the other side.

Second, as you near the east end of SGI (where the tree line starts to vanish), there is a patch of very shallow water near the shore. You're going to want stay north a bit. There's a big submerged tree a few hundred feet offshore that I use as my point of reference for the beginning of the shallows. Coordinates for the tree are N29 43.564 / W084 44.881. Water gets much deeper as you get closer to East Pass.

My wife and I are going to be down on the Island with some friends this weekend, leave some fish for us.

Good luck!

Thanks for the coordinates Gumbo, I'd hate to hit that thing.