Captain Chad Starling
904.502.7408
TeamBuckRogers.com
With the exception of Tropical Storm Isaias, the past few weeks have given us some beautiful weather… and it shook up the fishing quite a bit. The bait we had disappeared and the fish we were once whacking tapered off and became a struggle.
Since then the fishing has really picked up but the bait situation is still a major issue and frustrates you on a daily basis. Usually, this time of year we have a steady supply of pogies up and down the beach, but recently. It's been terrible, so we've had to jig live bait using bait rigs called sabiki’s.
Natural ledges and artificial wrecks are the best places to find the bait. Sometimes you can see the schools of bait on top of the water but most of the time, you have to use your sonar to find them. If you can catch live bait trolling for king mackerel has been pretty effective. And we are catching an abnormally high number of cobia. Many of which are too small to keep.
A sporadic sailfish, blackfin tuna, or dolphin is also possible.
Another major issue we have been dealing with are the large numbers of huge sharks offshore. These include tiger sharks, bull sharks, sandbar sharks and hammerhead sharks that really enjoy eating our fish before we can get them in the boat.
We've lost so many fish that way over the past few years [and each year it gets worse] it's no wonder our shark fishing charters are so successful.
Bottom fishing inside of 20 miles is mainly small sea bass, small vermilion, some ringtail porgies, and a lot of red snapper.
Outside of 25 miles the bottom fishing is really good for vermilion snapper, triggerfish, red porgy, amberjack, almaco jack, some grouper, mangrove snapper, and some mutton snapper. You have to fish hard, but the fish can be found!
On another note, thanks to your support, Team Buck Rogers Charters was rewarded with the title of "Best Fishing Charter in Northeast Florida". There were 85 companies in the competition and thanks to all the support we received, TBR won for the second consecutive year. 2019 and now 2020!
Thank you all for your support!