In this week’s Northwest Florida Fishing Report, host Joe Baya covers an early-fall fishing window with strong inshore redfish action, productive bottom fishing, and some outstanding bluewater tuna fishing. This episode features Capt. Tyler Massey with Hot Spots Charters in Pensacola and Capt. Adam Schroeder with Ignite The Bite Charters in Destin.
Joe also joins Alabama Saltwater Fishing Report host Butch Thierry for a special conversation with Capt. King Marchand of Capt. Mike’s Deep Sea Fishing about a strong yellowfin tuna bite, live chumming, finding catchable fish in the water column, and the tackle adjustments that are helping crews land fish well over 100 pounds.
Conditions Recap
The first real pushes of early-fall weather are beginning to influence Northwest Florida. A strong east to northeast wind was blowing during the report, with gusty conditions keeping some boats at the dock, but Capt. Tyler Massey expects the east wind and east-running current around Pensacola to help move cleaner water toward the area. He also believes that cleaner water could help push more bait and king mackerel toward the western Panhandle as the fall pattern develops.
Inshore fishing is already showing the kind of consistency anglers look for in September. Pensacola has a strong redfish bite around bridges, jetties, the pass, and other structure, although the best action can be extremely tide dependent. Around Destin, bait has become much easier to catch and that abundance is helping redfish, mangrove snapper, flounder, and trout. Capt. Adam Schroeder says the inshore bite is among the best he has seen this year.
Offshore, the variety is the main attraction. Gag grouper, amberjack, red snapper, triggerfish, vermilion snapper, and other reef species are all giving anglers options from state waters to deep natural bottom. Farther offshore, Capt. King Marchand reports an excellent yellowfin tuna bite around the rigs, including multiple fish over 150 pounds and a recent 209-pound yellowfin caught on live bait.
Pensacola Inshore And Offshore Fishing Report – Capt. Tyler Massey With Hot Spots Charters
Capt. Tyler Massey with Hot Spots Charters says Pensacola anglers have a legitimate choice between staying inshore and running offshore whenever the weather allows. In the bay, redfish have been the most impressive bite, with slot fish and oversized reds spread from the pass into Santa Rosa Sound and the main bay system. Trout, flounder, mangrove snapper, and Spanish mackerel are also available.
For redfish, Tyler has been relying heavily on live bait. Scaled sardines, live shrimp, and croakers are all producing, with much of the fishing taking place around structure. The Pensacola Bay Bridge, Bob Sikes Bridge, Garcon Point Bridge, the Fort Pickens jetties, and rock structure around the pass and Intracoastal Waterway are all examples of the type of areas he is targeting.
The biggest factor is moving water. Tyler says the fish may remain around a bridge even when they refuse to bite, then suddenly turn on for only 15 or 20 minutes when the tide reaches the right stage. On one recent trip, his crew checked the same bridge several times without much action before an incoming tide triggered a wide-open bite that produced roughly 20 redfish in about 15 minutes. When that happens, schools may move from piling to piling, so anglers should be willing to adjust rather than assuming one specific bridge support will hold the entire bite.
Tyler usually begins around the deeper portions of a bridge, particularly around the fenders and center spans, then works outward until he finds fish. Once he locates a productive stretch, the same general area can remain dependable through September and into October even though the exact bite window changes from day to day.
Speckled trout are mixed in size. Tyler is seeing plenty of fish just over slot size and into the upper teens, with some larger trout in the three-and-a-half- to four-pound range. His preferred live bait for bigger trout is a croaker. To improve casting distance, he hooks the croaker near the top of the tail so the bait flies headfirst. He prefers to free-line it on roughly a 4/0 Kahle-style hook and lets a strong, lively croaker swim naturally rather than constantly reeling it back to the boat. The tradeoff is that tail-hooked croakers do not tolerate repeated retrieves well, so he tries to make each cast count.
Mangrove snapper are holding on many of the same structures as the redfish. Bridges, residential docks in the Sound, jetties, and other hard structure are producing on live shrimp, scaled sardines, and other smaller baitfish. Like the redfish, Tyler says the mangrove bite can change dramatically with the tide.
Offshore, Tyler has been concentrating on deeper hard bottom and rock formations rather than spending too much time on close-in wrecks that have been heavily pressured. On longer trips, he will send a variety of baits to the bottom and let the spot reveal what is there. Scamp, red snapper, gag grouper, and amberjack can all come from the same general areas, and he moves quickly when a spot stops producing.
Gag grouper have been especially consistent in roughly 250 to 290 feet of water. Tyler says most of the gags he has caught recently have been quality fish over 20 pounds, with some in the 25- to 30-pound range. One of his best current baits has been a butterflied Boston mackerel. Butterflied white snapper and red porgies are also producing, and small bonito can be excellent when available because they stay together better than softer dead bait.
Red snapper have been somewhat slower on the closest wrecks, but Tyler is still catching quality fish while targeting other species farther offshore. King mackerel are also beginning to appear over live bottom in roughly 100 to 120 feet of water. He has not yet seen the full nearshore fall king run, but the combination of east current, cleaner water, and increasing bait could help that bite improve.
Joe is also watching the offshore water with Hilton’s Realtime Navigator, where blue-green water and better offshore conditions were showing around the FADs and farther to the south and east. That is the kind of setup that can eventually push fall pelagics closer to the Panhandle.
Gulf Yellowfin Tuna Report – Capt. King Marchand With Capt. Mike’s Deep Sea Fishing
Joe and Alabama Saltwater Fishing Report host Butch Thierry join Capt. King Marchand of Capt. Mike’s Deep Sea Fishing for a detailed bluewater report built around one of the strongest tuna stretches of the season. King’s crew recently landed a 209-pound yellowfin, followed by a 169-pound fish, along with numerous tuna in the 70- to 80-pound class and smaller legal fish.
The biggest yellowfin have been coming on live bait rather than traditional trolling spreads. One of the keys has been live chumming with “crazyfish,” also called hornbellies. King says one large tuna they cleaned had 19 of those small baitfish in its stomach, showing just how aggressively the fish had responded to the live chum.
King has found that larger tuna often need a much bigger burst of chum to become aggressive. Smaller yellowfin may charge four or five live baits, while the bigger and more cautious fish may require roughly 20 to 25 baits scattered behind the boat before they lose their hesitation. The challenge is creating enough feeding competition to trigger a strike without feeding the entire school to the point that the bite dies.
Hook selection has also made a major difference in landing percentage. King specifically likes small Owner MUTU Circle Hooks, often around a 2/0 size for this style of live-bait fishing. He says the small circle hook consistently finds the corner of a tuna’s mouth and has reduced the number of fish lost compared with older setups that resulted in more deep hookups.
Finding the fish on sonar is only the first step. King generally watches from the surface down to about 400 feet but zooms his display into roughly the 80- to 250-foot range when he is trying to decide whether a school is catchable. In his experience, yellowfin marked around 180 feet or shallower are much more likely to respond to live bait. Fish holding at 250 to 300 feet can be extremely difficult to move, even when there are plenty of marks on the screen.
If the fish are too deep, King may leave the rig and return later. On one recent trip, he marked a large number of tuna below 250 feet and could not get them to rise despite live baiting, chunking, and sending baits deeper. He returned about an hour before dark, found the fish closer to 180 feet, and immediately began catching them. For anglers in the same situation, he would rather return a couple of hours before sunset and commit to the evening bite than burn the entire day waiting on inactive fish.
King’s preferred live-bait reel is the Shimano Talica, with the Talica 25 being a common choice on his boat. He likes the smooth free-spool for keeping a live bait natural behind a moving boat and the reel’s ability to accept a harness. His typical setup uses 65-pound braid, sometimes 80-pound braid, connected to approximately 40 to 50 feet of 80-pound fluorocarbon. When the fish get difficult, he will scale the leader down as light as 40 pounds.
King also recommends stretching fluorocarbon before fishing it. Pulling pressure against a fresh length of leader helps remove the coil and memory so the bait swims more naturally. He connects braid to fluorocarbon with an FG knot because the slim knot passes easily through the guides and avoids the additional drag of a small swivel in the water.
Drag management is critical when leader size gets lighter. King may set the reel for approximately 15 to 16 pounds of drag, but he does not immediately push a hooked tuna to that pressure. On 40- or 50-pound leader, he prefers to fight the fish on roughly seven or eight pounds of drag through the initial long runs. Once the tuna settles into the deeper circles under the boat, he gradually increases the pressure. If the fish makes another hard run near the boat, he backs the drag off again instead of forcing the fish against light leader.
Amberjack fishing has also been productive, but King says bait size determines the quality of fish anglers catch. Large hardtails are his preferred live bait for keeper amberjack. Smaller baits tend to produce more undersized fish. Slow-pitch jigs and bucktail-style jigs will catch amberjack, but on closer artificial reefs he often sees more small fish on artificials than on a large live bait. Farther offshore around shelf rigs, jigs can still produce legal fish.
Whale sharks had also been creating some memorable open-water tuna opportunities in recent weeks. King says those encounters have become less common lately, but anglers should continue watching frigate birds and surface activity because yellowfin, blackfin, and skipjack tuna can travel around whale sharks even when the shark itself is difficult to spot.
Destin Inshore And Offshore Fishing Report – Capt. Adam Schroeder With Ignite The Bite Charters
Capt. Adam Schroeder with Ignite The Bite Charters says the Destin bite is strong both offshore and inshore, which gives him plenty of options when fall fronts make Gulf conditions unpredictable. When the weather is calm enough, Adam’s first choice right now is offshore fishing because gag grouper, amberjack, red snapper, triggerfish, and vermilion snapper are all available.
Adam has been specifically targeting gag grouper because he was seeing good numbers even before the September fishing window. Medium-sized pinfish are one of his dependable live baits. He prefers them over the largest pinfish he can catch because the medium baits seem to get eaten more consistently by the state-water grouper he is targeting.
Ruby red lips are another important bait. Adam likes to butterfly them when he is trying to separate gag grouper from amberjack on the same structure. The grouper readily eat the butterflied bait, while amberjack are more likely to ignore it in favor of a live, fast-moving bait. He keeps some ruby red lips whole for amberjack after finishing his grouper fishing.
For gag grouper, Adam fishes directly on the bottom and uses enough tackle to move the fish immediately. His setup commonly starts with 80-pound mono main line and about 60-pound leader. He fishes a Carolina rig with six to eight ounces of lead and generally uses a five- to six-foot leader for grouper. The goal is to keep the bait right on the bottom while staying ready to react the instant a gag eats. Adam says gag grouper hit hard and frequently turn directly back toward the structure, so anglers who hesitate can lose the fish before the fight really starts.
Amberjack require a different presentation. Adam fishes live baits higher in the water column and may free-line them on large spinning tackle so the bait can swim down naturally. He generally uses a longer leader for amberjack, often eight to 10 feet. The biggest difference is bait movement: a gag may readily eat a butterflied bait sitting on the bottom, while an amberjack is much more likely to chase a lively bait swimming away.
The rest of the offshore bite has been consistent. Red snapper are still coming on small bay herring and greenies, with many fish in the 17- to 20-inch range and occasional larger snapper showing up while chunking. Vermilion snapper are dependable, and Adam is picking up some keeper triggerfish even though many of the triggers he catches are undersized.
Inshore, Adam calls the current bite one of the best of the year. Bait has become easy to find first thing in the morning, and redfish, mangrove snapper, flounder, and trout are responding. His plan depends on what the customers want. If the goal is larger redfish around the bridges, he tries to gather croakers and spot minnows. If the goal is a box of keeper fish, he may start with mangrove snapper before shifting to slot redfish, with flounder often mixed in.
Mangrove snapper are holding around Brooks Bridge, Destin Bridge, jetties, and deeper docks. Adam fishes them with a small Carolina rig, a smaller hook, and roughly 20-pound fluorocarbon. He does not rely heavily on chum in the bay because the fish are already holding around predictable structure when bait is present.
Both bull reds and slot redfish are biting well. Adam particularly likes an outgoing tide around the bridges. Some days the fish turn on immediately when the tide changes, while other days they need the outgoing water to build before the bite starts. If one section of a bridge is slow, he moves until he finds where the fish are feeding rather than assuming the tide is wrong everywhere.
For bull reds in heavy bridge current, Adam often anchors up-current rather than asking a trolling motor to hold the boat in strong flow for an extended period. His bridge setup is intentionally heavy: large spinning tackle, 65- to 80-pound braid, roughly 40- to 60-pound leader, around six ounces of lead, and a 5/0 or 6/0 hook. Croakers and spot minnows are his first choices, although pinfish and larger menhaden will also catch fish.
With the fall weather becoming more comfortable and so many offshore species available, Adam says he will choose the Gulf whenever the forecast allows. The advantage of his Destin operation is that if offshore conditions deteriorate, the current inshore bite gives anglers an excellent fallback without giving up a productive day of fishing.
