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On the pier tarpon are the most prized catches from the pier but they provide a challenge. The first challenge is to get the bite. Many days the tarpon come in just out of range of most casters. It takes a 9-10 foot rod to reach them most days. The favored lures are Braid Runners, large 4 oz spoons, cedar plugs and the like. Live hard tails and ly's work if they come close enough to reach with these baits. Once you get the bite having enough line and strong enough line to handle the battle of an hour or more with a tarpon is key. Power Pro line will help immensely here as its small diameter allows plenty of line with good strength and does not tend to blow up reel spools like mono will on large species. The other target fish from the pier are king mackerel which are generally caught between 4:30 am and 8 am or in the afternoons if the trade winds blow above 10 mph. any time we have a weather front pass is a good time to try your luck. Live Ly's are the best baits but are harder to get now that they don't allow the use of Ly ribbons anymore. Plain gold hook rigs will work to get baits but are no real substitute for a Fluorocarbon Sabiki rig rigged with a 2oz lead. There always seems to be an abundance of sharks in the surf in summer. There are several sizes of sharks that roam the beaches that you can catch. First there are the black tips and sand bar sharks that are generally just the right size for large spinning tackle using a 4-6 foot leader and a porgies or ½ a ladyfish for bait. The other species like the bull, hammerhead and dusky generally require much heavier tackle to catch as they can be from 4-12 foot in length. For the larger one, a Penn Senator 6/0-12/0 filled with 80lb line is best. Your leader should be longer than the targeted size of shark. Again ladyfish whole or ½ of a bonito make the best bait. Most of the sharks are caught during the evening hours. For fishing in the day time, the pompano will bite from time to time on shrimp, sand fleas or Fish Bites. There are plenty of lady fish and some Spanish to catch jigging lures. There are some reds around but not as numerous as the cooler months. The jetties will have some black snapper hanging around the rocks. They can be caught drifting fresh cut porgies or cigar minnows and even live shrimp. The reds and blues will bite on the out going tide either on cut baits or lures. They should be a few Spanish and pompano around but not nearly the numbers we experience in the spring months.

Kings should be steady all month. Some real smokers were caught in June. Early in the mornings you will find the kings on the inshore spots like the airplane rock, Billy spot, broken bottom, pier rubble and El Matador gulley. Once the day heats up the fish move off to the Nickey Grounds, 18"s and Timber Holes looking for cooler water to escape the heat of the day. This is also the month where it is not unheard of to catch a sailfish, black fin tune or whaoo in shore also while trolling or live baiting for kings. Plenty of schoolie dolphin should be prevalent also. Do you want snapper? We most would have you believe they have all moved to deep water because of heat. But check those inshore wrecks and see if you don't see something on the bottom machine. A lot of times the snapper are ther but is hard to get a bite, if this is the case get a light spinning rod with like 20lb line and a 3-6oz lead with a live shrimp. a lot of times this is a excellent way to get a bite. If live shrimp are in short supple because of summer heat cast new a few small menhaden in the bayous as they work good on a light rig to. Sometimes in the summer heat the snapper like a smaller snack rather than a larger one.

Wahoo and dolphin can be found anywhere from just inshore of the edge and out. The rock cliffs, steps, flats, the nipple and the squiggles have all had their share of fish. White marlin and blue marlin have picked up around the spur, squiggles and the mouth of the canyon. Yellow tuna have been fantastic with lots of black and skip jack tuna around the spur, canyon mouth, double titty and rigs have all been good. If you get lucky enough to find an offshore shrimper or whale shark, try you best to stay with them. Shrimpers normaly cull the catch twice or three times a day and the tuna will normally be around for that. As for the whale sharks, they only hang out in areas with a lot of plankton, and where there is plankton there is squid. Where there is squid offshore, there are tuna and usually lots of them. There have even been a couple of bluefin tuna caught this year. Troll spreader bars of squid or bullyhoo to attract the tuna and use small soft heads, islanders or jets to get the tuna. Wahoo wasters in black/red, black/green and black/purple have all been good. Also the new Voodoo jets and highspeed lures have worked well. Grouper and amberjack will be good in water over 150 deep. Water temps have heated up and will require live hardtails for amberjack and live cigar minnows or threadfin herring for grouper. Use a extra long leader for more action. A couple good places are the large rocks south of Destin around 22 miles. 3000.027/8631.687, 3000.194/8631.521 and 3000.118/8631.671.

Trout will be moderate to good during the day and best at night. Live shrimp, menhaden, D.O.A. lures and Yozuri minnows work best. Best of all are the number of black and or mangrove snappers around the bridges and jetties. If you just want a good pull on the line look for large schools of jack cravelle in the mouths of the bayous in the early mornings.

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