Flats Fishing on the West Central Florida Gulf Coast Wednesday ,the day before THANKSGIVING guide Capt. Rich Knox reports catching pilchards and pinfish by cast-net was the hardest part of our day ! Fishing with Absolute Florida Flats Fishing that day was Tod Farrell and his family from the Tarpon springs area with 7 anglers on a 2 boat charter. We started out by chumming up pinfish and pilchards after a couple of stops on the inshore flats until we found and gathered up about 100 of each species per charter boat. It was time well spent and worth the effort, every flats fishing stop produced fish of all kinds,many nice red fish to 26” and 5-6 lb. ate the pinfish well,the gator trout that are moving around due to weather changes were from 16” to a whopping 26” and 5lb. trout fishing was excellent and chose either the pinfish or the pilchard, keeper Spanish mackerel where just about everywhere we fished shallow and deeper areas, sometimes we had to switch to long shank hooks ,big ladyfish (poor man’s tarpon) jumping, screaming drags on the 8lb. test braided line, also caught were bluefish, and more…..
All and all the fishing charter filled their fish cooler with a nice variety of inshore flats fish for their fish smorgasbord that night before turkey-time. Excellent fall fishing action for a ½ day charter, we lost count of the number of fish caught ! ! !