Capt Jim Hammonds Jacksonville fishing forecast-1.jpg

James Howard with a nice mess of gigged flounder


Can you say SHRIMP

We have had one of the best years, that I can remember for catching shrimp and as long as we continue to have NO RAIN, they will stay in the inshore waters.

This year, I have caught enough shrimp to fill my freezer with tasty eaters and stock pile enough smaller ones for bait.

If you would like to enjoy a pile of shrimp, you are going to need a cast net from seven to ten feet in diameter, some sort of webbing sewn just above the lead line and the willingness to put forth a little effort. With that done, you should be able to get your legal limit of one 5 gallon bucket per boat if you are in a boat or one 5 gallon bucket per person if you are attached to land each and every trip.

The webbing can consist of lawn chair webbing that you can get someone to sew to your net or go and get two big rolls of duct tape and put that just above the lead line. It is a lot easier to have the lawn chair webbing sewn to the net but I have done the duct tape routine and it works just fine.

Now you want to head to the St Johns River, down around Green Cove and look for the boats. When the shrimping is as good as it is now, there will be a few boats, even on weekdays on the good spots. Just pull in next to them and start casting.

Areas to look for are the channel edges around the entrance to Black Creek, Governors Creek, the Shands Bridge and the east shoreline from Governors Creek. All of these spots will hold nice concentrations of these tasty little Crustaceans.

I like to shrimp in a water depth of 8 to 17 feet and when you cast, be sure you let the net go all the way to the bottom before you pull it back into the boat.

If you have found the mother load, you will feel them ticking the net as it gets near the bottom and what a great sensation this is. I love to cast my net and as it is sinking, fell through the line the little bugers hitting the inside of the net. It sort of feels like the line is being tapped with a stick.

If you are catching a mixed bag as far a size, you might want to cull out the smaller ones so they do not take up space in your limit of one 5 gallon bucket. When I am catching big ones and small ones, I usually toss the small ones back over as when it comes to eating shrimp, large ones are easier to peel.

After you get some shrimp to eat, you want to try catching a fish or two as the fishing is still pretty good in this area. Lots of reds, trout, flounder and croakers and last time I checked they will all eat a shrimp.

The lower end of the St Johns is holding some stud and studess redfish, nice croakers, yellowmouth to 3 pounds, big blue fish and some nice seabass.

My routine lately has been to take some of those shrimp and send them down on a small Daichii 1/0 Circle Wide hook and catch a croaker or two, then cut the croakers in half and send them down on a larger outfit, in search of the big reds.

Last week, I did this and my larger outfits were getting lots of decent bites but I was not getting a hook in the bitter. So, I put on a little smaller hook and instead of a half of a croaker, I cut the croaker in fillets and used a strip if the fillet about 4 inches long and 2 inches wide. This change soon started to produce real nice yellow mouth trout, blue fish and sea bass. I still managed to catch a few real nice reds but by days end, my cooler looked real good with all of the others in it.

I have been concentrating on rock piles in water from 25 to 45 feet deep and the tide has not seemed to matter, as long as it is moving.

One of my buddies (James Howard), who is a real good flounder gigger has been getting a nice box of these flatties but I have not seemed to catch any in the deeper water.

The jetties is still holding some keeper reds and a few spanish mackerel are still here. Last week I saw a few tarpon still hanging around but I was after something to eat, so we went on by them.

The creeks are starting to turn on a little with some nice catches of redfish and a few two to three pound flounder. Here is a place that a shrimp will not last more than a second or two on the hook as the pinfish are so thick, you could almost walk on them.

I have not thrown any top water lures lately but I would think this action should be happening pretty good on the higher end of the tide. Mill Cove is always a good place to try, this time of the year for the top water strike. If you have a Mirro Lure Provoker in your box, try it, you might be surprised.

Good Fishing
Capt. Jim Hammond
Capt Jim's Fun Fishing Inc.
Jacksonville, Fl 32226
904 757 7550
http://www.hammondfishing.com
jim@hammondfishing.com