Pensacola Inshore Fishing Report - Heat wave hits gulf coast

Heat wave hits gulf coast

The past few days it has been brutally hot here. With temps well above 90 and the heat index to be in the 100’s, I’ve been starting just before daylight and finishing up right around 10am.  With it being so hot, the fish have moved to deeper water, almost like in winter conditions, and not only have they moved deeper, I’ve had to slow down my lure presentation some. ZMan Jerk baits have been a great choice when the fish are in 6-10 ft of water, and suspending twitch baits like the MirrOlure 17 MR are great when I’m fishing 4- 5ft.

 I’ve also been tossing the 18MR in the deeper water and it has proven its worth again this year. I’ve been using these two MirrOlure baits for the past 10 years or longer and I always make sure they are stocked in my tackle bag.

When I have kids on board, I make sure to put a few live pinfish in the well for my kids to use on popping corks and this has helped with some rods bending. There was a tropical storm that was in the gulf last week and eventually landed in Texas. It had the gulf churned up pretty good with large seas, high winds and we’re still getting some effects, not the 6-9 ft seas we were getting, but now it’s around 3-4ft.  Once it lays down a little more like 1-1.5 ft, I’ll jump back out and have some fun with the snappers. But until then, I’m going to stay on the flats. Most of the fish caught on my trips as you can see from the pics have been trout; the redfish have been scarce for some reason in a few of my usual areas. I have an idea where they might be, so I’m going to do a little scouting the next few days to see my gut is right. Hopefully I get dialed in on them and I can put a few of my clients on some reds to go along with some nice trout. I was out in the gulf a few times and we caught some nice red snappers and this big cobia. 

It’s been a busy June so far. Stay tuned for another report next week. 

Till the next adventure, 

John