Inshore: October leads to some of the best fishing we see all year! The inshore bite will be on fire this month! We can expect to see large schools of redfish on all of our common flats. This includes the mouth of the Anclote river, west of gulf harbors , cow key and all of the areas in between. My favorite bait for redfish will be a cut bait on the bottom. Take a pinfish and cut the head tail and fins off and it makes the perfect bait! In these same areas we can expect to see snook, trout and even some cobia showing up! Have a line rigged on some heavier tackle with no weight to pitch to these fish. Offshore: the nearshore grouper bite is really taking off at the moment ! Trolling and casting plugs at these fish is by far my favorite technique, however freelined pinfish or white bait in a split work just as well! Kingfish should be showing up this month as well. Target hard bottom in 20-50 feet of water bump trolling larger streamline bait fish . Tip of the month: bring lots of bait ! Wether it be offshore or inshore, all of our species can be chummed up ! If you chum they will come! Tarpon fishing outfitters sells great tools to aid in chumming, so make sure you ask your associate on their favorite tricks and techniques!

Hurricane Irma did not effect the bite out there for us. On this 6-hour charter we caught fish until the family could not lift there arms any more. The morning starts off for myself as i launch the boat at 4am in search of bait. After filling both 40 gallon live wells with thousands of bait fish i return to the dock. Meeting the family of 4 at the dock at 8am, we ran through some introductions then were off. The first stop of the day was a shallow Rockpile in search of some tasty mangrove snapper and grouper. The first bat full of chum over the rocks was a great sign. Every bait we through over was immediately eaten by a predator fish. The first fish of the day was caught by young Ian, and it was the one fish he wanted to catch more than anything. A shark! A 4 foot Black tip to be precise. Soon after all the rods and the boat were going off. A list of species we caught on that single spot included: Mangrove snapper, Gag Grouper, Red grouper, Speckled Trout, Spanish Mackerel, Black Sea Bass, Flounder and sharks. And this was all before 10am! As i looked at my watch i knew the tide was high enough for our next spot. This fishing spot is located up in the Back country where you will not see any other boats, people, or signs of civilization. We pulled into this shallow spot and could see fish darting all around the spot before we even put down the power pole. This was going to be great! From that moment we caught Redfish every single cast!!! We fished in this area for 1.5 hours and in that short time we must have caught 50 Redfish! After the Redfish no one could lift their arms to bear catching another fish. So we started the next task of the day. Teaching 12 year old CJ how to catch bait like a pro. We headed out to my bait spot where Cj learned how to chum for bait as well as of the other types of bait available in our area. He did a great job catching bait. (Maybe i should hire him to be my first mate) We finished the day out by watching the dolphins play in the wake of the boat for a little bit, and then a few opportunities at a nice Snook. Unfortunately the Snook wouldn't cooperate, all of them breaking off or spitting the hook before they could come up for a nice picture. Tight Lines- Captain Michael Dawson Patriotic Guide Service