PONCE INLET & BACKWATERS

May is here and so are the warmer temps ...finally! Hopefully our fronts from the north are over and a dominate high pressure trend will start making it more stable with winds and temperatures. May also means getting up a little earlier to get the best bite!

This year will be a little different for me as I typically would focus on the spring mullet run and spend a lot of time at the inlet catching the reds and snook that love to take advantage of all of the food (they will still be there so don’t shy away from that action). However, this year I will be focused more on the flats and fishing the greater Ormond area out of our shop, Yellow Dawg Bait & Tackle, located at High Bridge in Ormond by the Sea. The fishery there is healthy and it tends to get a lot less pressure than the areas to the south including Mosquito Lagoon. I love back country fishing. I'd say out of all of the fishing I do including offshore, inshore and along the beach, that back country sight fishing is my favorite by far. Just being in the mangroves with no one around—all the casting and spotting fish, light tackle, the wildlife—it's just addicting. When fishing clients in the back waters I like to use a combination of live bait, cut bait and artificial. I will use popping corks with live shrimp, and for cut bait I like mullet or even quartered blue crab. As far as artificial, I tend to only use paddle tails with customers for safety reasons (treble hooks hurt). like Z-Man, Gulp and, as of lately, I really like NLBN (No Live Bait Needed) which we just started carrying at the shop. It swims very well, they have jig heads that hold the plastic on great, and they produce fish! Don’t get me wrong, a top water will perform great especially in the morning, and then suspended baits as the day goes on will also work just fine. I like fishing deeper holes along mangroves, points and channels for snook. You will also find redfish there, but I certainly find a lot of reds in the flats where you wouldn’t think they would be.

200+ feet of water, however temperature breaks, color changes, and even just a floating piece of debris will help you find fish. We typically will use skirted ballyhoo, sometimes naked ballyhoo, and I always suggest having a plug like a cedar plug in your trolling spread so that you can pick up the occasional blackfin tuna. If you get into some fish, keep a spinning rod and some chunk bait ready (like cut up sardines), reel in a schoolie mahi, but keep him close to the boat—don’t pull him out of the water, toss out some chunks of bait to the school of fish and then pitch a piece out on the spinner; this is one of my favorite ways to catch them!

As a charter business, May also means mahi for us. Once the high pressure sets in, the ocean is typically calmer so getting out for them is a little easier. We typically look for weed lines in

Warmer weather is here so get out and go