Hi Joe,

Got a chance to go back out to HISP tonight to see if the Snook were still around. Got there about 7:30 and fished until 9:00. Hooked 3 and landed 2 using the gold SS Minnow and weedless Edje hook set up.

Nothing else was there, but the Snook were and that is what counted. Here are two pictures. One of them shows the gold SS Minnow still in the Snook's mouth. SS Minnow kicks ass one more time!

Walt

The late afternoon rains have arrived and cooled off the challenging fishing days and made them more productive. Get out onto the flats early in the morning before the winds and thunder boomers arrive. Casting top water plugs in white with red faces or mullet patters thru bait pods will provide great trout action.

Slot reds will be cruising the grass flats in the early part of the day and then moving to deeper water in the afternoon. Tailing reds can be found in deeper grass until the winds start blowing.

Redfish seem to change up their taste in baits everyday so be prepared with several colors based water clarity and time of day. Clear with gold flecks has been successful one day and rootbeer has been better the next day.

Flounder continue to be abundant and are easily found in dropoffs and sand or mud holes.

Snook are beginning to show up and several under slot size have been caught in canals along mangrove lines and in channels. Breeder snook are being caught in the Sebastian Inlet during tide changes. Please remember to handle all fish that are to be released with great care.

For information more information and how to book your kayak fishing adventure on the Spacecoast, visit ReelKayakFishing.com or contact Dee Kaminski at (321)394-6874.

Hi Joe,

I went back to Honeymoon Island last night in search of Snook again. No Snook. There were a bunch of other people fishing as well. Most of the other guys were using live white bait while others used spoons or treble hooked plugs. I was using a gold SS Minnow / Edje hook combination.

I managed to catch quite a variety of fish including a Cobia, Trout, Lady fish and even Flounder. The live bait guys fished for a long time and the only thing they caught was one very small Trout.

I asked the fellow that was fishing with the treble hooked plug to try an SS Minnow and gave him one of your lures. I believe it was his first cast and he hooks a Flounder. Soon after he hooked a Pompano and then a Trout. He became a believer in a hurry regarding your SS Minnow.

To my knowledge no other fish were caught by at least 6 other guys using live bait and two guys using misc. artificial baits. The SS Minnow kicks ass one more time. Walt

Its been a long fast month. I've been doing alot of traveling, seminars and such. This is just a recap of fishing around some of the areas;

Fishing the Florida panhandle around Panama City Beach June 3-15 I fished with a lot of great people. It was a tough bite for June but we did turn some really good fish. Working a new concept. The SS Minnow Rigged on a 3/0, 1/8 - 1/4 oz Edje hook weedless has been really taking on a good bite.

Second in line is the Boss Jerk bait rigged on the 5/0, 1/16 or 1/8 oz Edje hook weedless. We caught a lot of decent size trout and a bunch of redfish.

Our normal June bite in this area is 40+ redfish days plus many trout. With the hot weather we are experiencing this year and such little rain the fish have moved to their July / August patterns early. Basically they are not eating as much. Water temps reaching in the low 90's on the flats just shuts the fish down to eat little.

The advantage of the minnow is the fact that its like M & M's or popcorn. Always room for some of that. They don't want a 16 oz T-Bone. Got it!

Keaton Beach, Fl May 28 I fished a tournament with Heather from my pro staff team for reds and trout. The tournament ended up not being that well organized, but we were able to fish a new place and had fun on the fishing end of it. This area fishes different than most I have fished in the past. It seems the redfish tend to hang deeper looking for the in 2'-4' of water instead of that 1'-2' range.

Most of the fish in the shallows were on the smaller side. The larger keeper fish tend to come from the 3' depths, very different for me. Key lures for us were the SS Minnow rigged on the Edje weedless hook, 3/0 hook size and you really can use any weight you want since you will be working this low. The heavy weight will give you distance and working on the bottom its just irresistible to the fish.

On the trout angle of the tournament we moved out to 6-12 ft of water the SS Minnow worked ok but just had to be patient on letting it sink. I found the best bait here was the Silly Willy jig. I changed the teaser hook to the 2/0 instead of the #2 to target these larger fish we were looking for. The catch on this was some nice trout over 20", a lot of black Sea bass, and then the usual lady fish, pins and much more... I just can not remember right now.

St. Josephs sound June 21 I fished with one of my landscape Clients Jon. We went out to Caledesi Island and Honeymoon Island. The target species were Redfish and later would see if we could land a half dozen or so large Blacktip sharks.

Working Caledesi on an outgoing tide we saw very few single reds on the flats and after about an hour or two I had mentioned to Jon that we needed to find a school. These fish are not spotted like they should be so they will be in late summer pattern schooled somewhere.

I decided to start running the shallows with the big motor to see if we could make a push on some fish. Less than a 1/4 mile there they were just like I thought. They were moving from the deeper 30" water towards the shallows from the noise of the boat. We settled down and just sat back to watch till they stopped moving.

As we approached the area we noticed that where we thought they settled was a small trough and were not anywhere to be found. We just stayed looking and blind casting. Another boat heading over the island ended up pushing them up again and they had some how snuck around and were back in the deep.

Their push brought those fish right up by us and they decided to stay up in the 12" waters and tailing for hours. We thru everything but live/dead bait to them but no takers. Jon says he had 2 hits but..... we worked those fish for about 3 hours. Nothing.

Next we moved to my ladyfish area to get some bait for the sharks. even the ladies were hard to come by on the Silly Willy Jig. The best fish of the day came from trying to catch bait. I got a nice Pompano in about 5' water. Moved over to my shark flat but all we could get were puppies. I think that the water is just way too hot.

With showers starting to produce, fishing should really pick up next week.

Englewood 6/23. With a seminar scheduled in Venice for that evening I dragged Heather from Bonita Springs to meet me in Englewood. I wanted to try out the new CJ rig. She named this lure and it has sentimental value to its name. I know because of this, she will use this thing until she masters it. If its going to be tested right she is the one to do it. I keep falling back to the minnow because its my confidence bait.

We met up at Indian Mounds Boat Ramp and started working a few areas I have fished before. There was no mullet activity or any other for that matter. Our mission now was to find some mullet and hope they would contain some reds. We were able to do so in a short time. Mixed with the mullet were some snook and some reds but the bite was none existent.

Heather decided that she wanted to work up this shallow but very wide creek. There was good tidal flow outgoing. I thought she was nuts because the water was just so hot. Fishing with her over the last month or so I have been showed up too many times. Trying to not be stubborn and keep an open mind, I humored her and worked up the creek.

She decided to have me go into these mangrove infested areas that has so little water and had to scrape the boat to get into these spots. She ended up having a Baby Tarpon chase Down her CJ rig so I thought maybe I should start to fish again that maybe there was hope.

We kept going thru all these tangled mangrove areas till we found some open water on the creek. Mullet were still throughout and now we were seeing some decent snook and reds mixed in with them. I had some stuff for making CJ rigs on the boat so Heather had me make her a new color. Pull some hair from here, and there, a little gold and little this, a little that. "That's good".

So I made this new one for her and in a few minutes she landed a nice 27" snook way up this creek. Go Figure. I ended up hooking up one myself but due to my stubbornness to use the light leader to target only reds I was cut-off with just a few seconds of hard drag pull. I got to see part of the fish as it went. It was at least the same as the one Heather had just landed if not bigger.

My point is that you really need to try new things sometimes. Just because you don't believe in it doesn't mean it won't work. Keep an open mind and give it a try.

Captain Joe

Hi Joe, How is this for a SS Minnow / Edje hook advertisement? Hooked four...landed two. All about the same size. Next time I will use a heavier leader. My bad.

These guys were caught on the Edje hook / SS Minnow that you rigged for me at your seminar on Monday. The first two Snook were hooked on the gold flake SS Minnow and the two that I lost were hooked on a green / silver flake SS Minnow. You can see the gold SS Minnow in the Snook's mouth in the one picture.

The combination of the SS Minnow and the Edje hook worked perfectly and kept me from hooking up on the rocks which would been a problem if I had used just a standard jig head with the SS Minnow

Thanks for the advise, the lure and the seminar. Walt

Joe, Went back to Honeymoon again last night. No snook this time but did get one Jack and one Trout. Again the neat thing was that I fished next to another guy who fishes there a lot. He was using a soft plastic swim bait (not yours) and he got nothing, nada, zip, zero, squat. So the SS Minnow / Edje hook wins again.

This time I was using the white Minnow and 30# leader, I was ready for the Snook this time but they were not. I was disappointed with that after the 4 hook-ups the night before. No pictures unless you want to see a sunset. Walt