PC/PCB Fishing Report 3-14-25
Bay Fishing
The bite is really good! According to Capt. Erick Wilkas with Semper-Fi Charters he has been doing well on the trout. He says they seem to be concentrated near the freshwater inlets to the bay and just outside. They are also closer to the bayou mouths and not up in them very far at all. He said he is fishing very shallow with a very light jig and a soft plastic shrimp. Along grass lines and such.
There are some redfish there too, but he said there are a decent number of redfish in the pass and they seem to be around the rocks up a bit shallow. This is great for not only boat anglers, but those on the jetty as well. Those fish will hit soft plastics, but they rarely turn down a live shrimp. A carolina rig with live shrimp is generally a great choice. You might get a bonus sheephead as well!
There have been some success with sheephead on a jig with fiddler crabs around the rocks and on any rocky structures out near the channel. Ther have been limits, but the fisherman getting them are very experienced so work on your presentation and use a fluorocarbon leader in the 20lb range. Capt Eric also said there are some spanish out there in the bay, but not a lot.
*BRAND NEW* Ghost Shrimp FishBites
Get 'em while they're hot! We now have Ghost Shrimp FishBites to pair with your bait.
In May they handed out samples to try that were actually early batches. Reports were excellent. They tweaked and improved a few things and now you absolutely should be using some on your next fishing trip to the beach.
Surf Fishing
A lot of weather and unfishable days followed by stained water did not allow for a lot to go, but some did anyway with mixed results. Most got skunked. It was fairly dirty! There were some that got pompano, whiting, redfish, and catfish. As of Thursday, it was clearing up nicely.
Blanched sand fleas and peeled shrimp are the way to go unless you can get some ghost shrimp. We still have some really well-made pumps sitting in the store by the nets, sand spikes, and sandflea rakes. The ghost shrimp can be caught along the shore and along the bay. Those small holes you see on the bottom are the entry to their maze holes. Pump each hole at least 3 times to verify if there are or are not any home. There are several ways to collect them. Blow out the contents into a net that is floating or being held by a friend. The friend should also keep an eye out for some floating out of the turbid stirred up water. They are really slow swimmers so collecting them is easy. Make sure you have some magic thread to wrap the ghost shrimp to the hook. If you get into a lot of them, make sure to keep some of bionic brine powder at home so you cand dust them up with the powder and add a little water to freeze them so you are ready to go next time.
This week should see some much improved catches, although we are expecting some rough weather on Saturday night. Hopefully it does not mess up the water clarity too bad.
Fish-N-Mate Rake and Spike Carrier
This easy to attach accessory will make your next trip to the beach a whole lot easier! This Rake and Spike holder fits 4 Fish-N-Mate Sand Spikes and a Fish-N-Mate Sand Flea Rake.
Pier Fishing
Winds, rain and especially ruled the week. There had been little to no bait on pier until Thursday or so when it returned. That should bring in the more fish and more species this week as it clears up. This week there were some fish caught. Smaller spanish mackeral were around and caught at times. Some were caught on larger sabikis and a few on Got-cha plugs. Early spanish are usually a bit smaller so go with smaller lures than in a month or so.
There were also some pompano caught and rumors of one person getting a limit. The pier can be a great place to load up on pompano, but once they show up strong you are going to be elbow to elbow. Two hook pompano set rigs will work, but keep one of our custom pompano jigs ready to fire when the schools show up. Tipping with a sandflea, small piece of peeled shrimp, or a small triangular piece of FishBites will work to enhance the bite.
There were redfish caught and black drum. There were some bigger whiting caught as well.
Bottom Fishing
The bite has been very good. Recently, Captan Jonathan “Chewy” Hartsfield of Chewey’s Charters took clients out and hook into some of the biggest red snapper you might ever see in state waters. It was more than just one spot or one day. He did it multiple times. They also caught gag grouper, vermillion, and some other species.
Capt. Eric Wilkas with Semper-Fi Charters does both inshore and offshore charters. When weather permitted he went out and has hammered the vermillion snapper. He also said he is catching a decent number of quality triggerfish. He added that they are catching plenty of red snapper and some gag grouper as well as red grouper.
He advised that many of the reefs have a very large population of amberjacks. They were so thick that he started throwing topwater baits and had his clients getting as many good “pulls on fish” as they want. Some customers in the store on Thursday reported they had had similar results and got into some nice red grouper as well.
Nearshore Trolling
No one really reported much. It has been rough and coming off of the full moon. In the next week or so there will be more spanish and maybe a blackfin tuna or two caught.
If you are trolling for spanish, make sure and go “00” on the Clarkspoon, but no bigger than say a “0”. Why? The Spanish are smaller and so are the minnows they are going to be targeting.
Offshore
There were some not so great reports around the FADS one day and another day someone picked up a wahoo and some mahi out that way. That said, there were very few and short windows to get out. March can be like that!
