Sept 1, Apalachee Bay

[Srbenda]

We hit the water around 10:30 to heavy grey skies, and a brisk wind out of the northeast, thanks to Dorian. We headed to the east flats, where water visibility was better about 4' to 5' and the water temps were around 85f, which is a few degrees cooler than it has been.

We splurged for live shrimp this weekend, but had to go Shields to get them, and bouncing them along the bottom picked up lots of short trout, and a never-ending assault by pinfish.



We started fishing some DOA shrimp under a cork, and boated two sailcats, one of them a nice size. Beyond that it was pinfish and sharks and short trout. ( Yes, we ate the sailcats, delicious!)



We tried deeper water, going out to 10' but no real change in success. Drifting some pinfish gave us a few sharks for fun, but it was slow fishing. We headed over to some dropoffs into deeper water, and caught a spanish mackeral on a live shrimp bounced off the bottom, and a few more shark attacks.



It almost seems that during these hotter months, either go offshore or don't bother. Or I'm missing something?

[Juan]

Great report! I've never kept or eaten a sail cat but after reading this and your recipe I'm convinced and I'm going to try one. Just ordered a couple bottles of Unagi sauce. Now I need to catch another snot cat.

EDIT: Changed my mind , or lost my nerve and I'm not doing it. There's just too many good eating fish out there. But I did try something new and the Unagi sauce is awesome.

[Salty Gator]

Live shrimp in summer = trash fish
Thanks for the report, glad y’all got out

[eightwt]

Went out of Shell Point, that day. To say it was slow is an understatement. I got a couple of small trout and ladyfish. My fly was almost as long as one of the trout, maybe my personal best small trout, LOL. Son did manage a nice slot red on a plastic. Consider it a paying dues day.

[Greenbone]

1 ‘23’ red till it got hot. 3 ‘ water ,cut pin fish