BlueWater Outriggers Fishing Report 4-10-2025
Offshore: Once again there is not much to report on offshore fishing. The seas have just been too rough for most people to get out there. We may have two days this week that folks can give it a try and I hope to have good news in next week's fishing report. NOAA is calling for 2-4 ft seas on Friday and building higher on Saturday. Sunday they will drop some and Monday could be the best bet for getting out there with seas forecasted to be 1 ft or less. Just remember to keep informed and check the forecast before you go out. I’m dying to see some good hauls come in that I can report on, but safety is our number one priority. Inshore: Let me tell you folks it is a certain kind of torture having to be stuck in this office writing this fishing report. It’s not because I’m lazy or just don’t care about you, it’s because fishing is in my blood and every ounce of my being wants...no... NEEDS to be out there right now. It’s too good to pass up. Big trout, big Flounder, big Redfish, they’ve all been coming into the cleaning tables. Wendy and Brooke Wilkes, pictured above, took a 2- hour boat ride and came back in with a nice haul of trout and flounder; Nice catch girls! No boat, no problem. Wading the mouth of the Intracoastal I threw my cast net and loaded up with a mix of baby Bluefish and nice LY minnows. I hooked about a 4” LY through the eyes and tossed him out. Just when I was starting to think I may need to switch to a smaller bait my Duckett Ghost rod about flew out of my hands. My uncle gave me one of those looks like, “What the he** is that?” The fish was making a fast run with powerful thrusts. Worried, I double checked the amount of line left on my 1,000 series spinning reel. The monster had been on all of about a minute and made two more powerful thrusts; I felt his head shake and then...nothing. I had lost it! I know it goes with the territory folks, but that feeling is like no other. You become so present, so alive in the moment, your synapses firing on unprecedented levels and then... just nothingness. It reminds me of being young and in love, throwing your chips on the table and going all-in. You can’t eat, you can’t sleep, you dare to dream of a forever future and even find that you do relate to that Taylor Swift song on some level. Then you get that call that she wants to come over to your place and talk. My memory gets a little blurry here, but I remember sitting on the white couch my dad had given me, feeling dumbfounded and speechless. Then she got up, walked out the door, and that’s the last time I ever saw her. Losing a fish like the one I had is utter heartbreak on that type of level. But we don’t give up! We must go on. As stated earlier, It’s in our blood. And for one last Taylor Swift reference, I “Shook It Off,” grabbed a live shrimp, and got back out there, because as they say, there are plenty of fish in the sea. And the old adage proved to be true as I promptly landed a trout over the 19” mark and my uncle yanked out his second flounder over 18.” If the trout and flounder aren’t your thing you can head to the seawall where the Spanish Mackerel are cruising and take part in that action. If you’ve got good aim, fire a live minnow or shrimp close to the Jetty rocks and pick up a nice mangrove snapper. Mangroves over 10” are keepers but there have been a number being caught 12” and better. If you like fishing from the beach there have been a good deal of Pompano reports recently. When it comes to inshore fishing, now is the time to make it happen. The weather is beautiful and the fish are biting, so grab a rod and get to it. Freshwater: Sometimes it’s easy to overlook our freshwater fishing while we’re so close to the bay, but bass and panfish are hot now too. Stop in at Bluewater and talk to Chris Young about the Southern Tide Chasers’ Bass and Panfish Tournament on May 3 in Wewahitchka!
That’s it for this week! As always, I hope to see you out there. Jeremiah Beasley