Fishing Report: July 10, 2020

Every Friday morning, Captain Dylan Hubbard of Hubbard's Marina joins Good Day to fill viewers in on his fishing forecast as we head into the weekend.

Here is his fishing report for July 10, 2020.

Inshore

Snook fishing around the area continues to be on fire. We are seeing tons of snook around the passes at night and even during the day too.

The beaches are packed with snook during the day, cruising the troughs looking for live shrimp or soft plastics. Also, around the flats, mangroves, and structures of the bay you'll find plenty of fish around ready to eat for sure. They are ferocious feeders at the right time of day and tide. That is the biggest trick knowing when and where those fish will be feeding.

They will be set up to ambush passing baits when waters are moving at points, pockets, and passes. They feed best around the solunars and when bait is present, I like to use the smartfishingtides.com website to find out what day and time is best to target any inshore species. 

Mangrove snapper are thick throughout the area right now around most any structures. Docks, piers, bridges, and seawalls are all great places to find these guys swarming most any small piece of bait you put down on lighter tackle. You can even chum up the area on a slow-moving tide to get them even more concentrated and feeding actively.

As the tide starts to move, they will heat up more making easy pickings for anglers of any age or experience. However, they bite quickly so that can be tricky but smaller number one hooks, and ultra-light 10-15lb leader is a great way to pick them up in good numbers. 

Redfish action has been trickier but were seeing them around the flats, mangrove shorelines and around the spoil islands of the bay. They love small pinfish, shrimp, white bait, or soft plastics best. 

Trout have been biting well around the edges of the flats or deeper grass flats in the 4-6 feett range. We are seeing lots of trout around the bridge and dock lights at night as well. We are seeing lots of the trout action in high concentrations once you find them chewing. 

Tarpon are still around the area, we actually had a decent bite around the passes this week despite the west winds. Normally, the tarpon ‘put their noses into the wind’ so that would mean most would clear out on a westerly wind patter like we have had this past week.

However, many nighttime snook fishermen in the passes are reporting hooking up to tarpon while fishing bigger snook baits. Plus, we had some young anglers hook up and jump some tarpon off our dock this past week as well. 

Pompano bite has slowed down quite a bit, however, we are still seeing a few come up around the jetties and beaches. Most that are being caught are fairly large too in the 14-17 inch range. We are catching them mostly on the doc’s goofy jigs or the nekid ball jigs around the outside of the surf on the beaches or around the tips of the local jetties around those sandy passes. 

Near shore

We have seen a great bite of lane snapper near shore again this week. The winds made the weather a bit more tricky this past week compared to the calm June weather we had. However, we were able to get out there quite often on our large charter boats and party fishing boats.

The lane snapper are biting best around 60-100 feet of water but were seeing good numbers as shallow as around 50 feet of water. We even caught a few yellowtail snapper out there too which is odd for this shallow of water but shows that summertime snapper spawn has these fish moving and feeding well.

We’re seeing some nice mangrove snapper occasionally mixed in with the lanes and the random yellowtail snapper. Vermillion are also biting well but they start deeper close to around 100ft of water. 

Red grouper action has been tricky due to weather we have been restricted in how much we can get deep enough to find these guys feeding well. They start around 60-80 feet of water but really start to see good action closer to 100 feet and beyond. They love those squid strips, whole squid, live pinfish, or large cut dead bait. 

Still seeing the occasional school of mahi mahi from time to time near shore around 60-100 feet of water. Do not forget your pitch rod with light tackle and a gotcha plug or a single 3ot circle hook with a live shrimp or chunk of threadfin to free line out for those mahi mahi. 

Kingfish and mackerel are fairly few and far between but there is still a few out there near shore. Look for those bait schools up on the surface and those birds working the bait. This is a sure sign that those mackerel are working the underside of the bait school. The kingfish are mostly offshore due to the warm waters right now. 

Offshore

We have been seeing some nice action offshore on the red snapper and some gags. However, the mangrove snapper fishing has been a little tricky.

Pelagics are heating up for us this week. We saw some nice kingfish and quite a few tuna on the recent 39 hour. The weather however has been really affecting our ability to get offshore and do well due to bumpy and windy conditions.

When the boat is bumping up and down quite a bit in the seas the mangrove snapper are even harder to catch. 

Luckily, the red snapper action is going well beyond that 60-mile mark in around 140-160 feet plus. The more ‘shallow water’ red snapper action has really gotten more tough. From around 40-60 miles in around 120-140 feet of water, it is much harder to put together a quality catch of red snapper.

We are still seeing them, but they have gotten smaller and fewer and further between. Takes a lot of work to grind together a limit of snapper in that ‘shallower water.’ 

We are still seeing some nice red grouper action around 120 feet and beyond. The deeper we get the bigger the red grouper seem. Those hard-bottom bait shows, potholes and peaks are holding those big red snapper feeding well. 

The gag grouper action has been decent this past week and were starting to see them best around 140 feet of water or more where the bottom temps are still chilly enough to keep em feeding well and cooperating with our anglers. 

We are seeing some scamp grouper out there mixed in with the gags and red grouper especially when we make it out much deeper closer to 160-200 feet or more. 

The pelagic fishing was HOT on this recent 39-hour with lots of tuna, some nice kings and even lost a big wahoo on the troll. The pelagic action will hopefully remain hot out there past around 120-140 feet of water if the water temps and currents remain similar.