Capt. Nestor Alvisa
Hooked on Flamingo Charter
HookedonFlamingo.com
Well fall is in full affect! With that said there is so much to do. In Flamingo, the cobia fishing is outstanding during the month of November. We’ll start to see our schools of fishing migrating into the gulf and hang around the boundary markers, wrecks and rock piles. Live pinfish on a bare hook or knocker rig on the bottom work great. Another effective technique is bucktail jigs rigged with a glowworm. Using the bucktail jigs seems to me one of the most productive ways of fishing for these fish as you’re always ready to pitch at a cobia of a fish or multiple fish swim up to the surface as well as just gives you the opportunity to cover water once you’re in the area. The Tripletail fishing on the crab buoys is another must during this time. Simply find a line of crab buoys and just run them until you find one with a triple tail on it. The fish will be right on the surface or just below it. A live shrimp or any artificial shrimp or small swim bait presented just in front of its face will work.
With water temperatures finally dropping and schools of baitfish like mullet and pilchards pushing into our waters fishing inshore out of Miami should be outstanding! You should be able to find tarpon, snook, jacks and sharks on the schools of mullet on the beaches and inlets. Big swim baits, flare hawks or just drifting live mullets should do the trick. I like using heavier rods when fishing the beaches and inlets to be able to horse the fish in much easier. A heavy rod with a 6500-8000 size reel with 50-65lb braid and 50-80lb leader should work great. Just look for the schools of mullet on the beaches and inlet and start fishing around them.
Another fishery that’s spectacular during this time of the year is in South Biscayne Bay for mutton snapper, mangrove snapper, groupers and jacks. I like to start my mornings netting as much pilchards as my live wells can handle. Once loaded up I’ll fish the finger channels, some shallow wrecks or some patch reefs on the ocean side for these fish. Once I’ve decided where ill be fishing I’ll position the boat and use my trolling motor to spot lock “anchor” on that spot and I’ll begin tossing some pilchards out into the water “free chum with the live baits” and let them swim around the area and start getting the fish excited to the point you’ll see them blowing up on the baits. Once you see the blow-ups you can put a bait on a hook and start fishing!
