Hey everyone! its been for ever since ive been fishing because ive been so busy with school. I finally got a free weekend and im going to Port O sat-sun this weekend. Has anyone fished Port O recently? are the reds running at the jetties yet? any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks

Fisherkid,
I went with a guide Sept. 22 to Port O. We caught a 39", 33", 31", 27", 28" redfish but it was really windy. So yes they are out on the jetty. You should easily get your limit of reds each day. Good luck to ya.

That was some pretty serious action there Salty,who was your guide. And what type of bait were you using? Were you inside or outside jetties, north or south side.Good luck fisherkid on your weekend, hope to hear a report from you too. Good luck.

poc-ed,
The guide's name is Dave Wesch. We fished inside mostly. We fished both sides North and South. We fished the bottom with fresh dead shrimp. We bought live shrimp and cut them in 2 or 3 pieces depending on the size of the shrimp. We looked for holes and fished those in the jetty.

The wife & I went down there over the week of Sept 16 and did great. Mostly reds. One of them oversized. Seemed like you could catch them on any bank.

I went back over Oct 6,7,8 last week and I couldn't buy one. On Saturday we got out at dawn to beat the crowd at Froggies and no one had live bait all day so I assume that they couldn't get them either. So not sure what the deal was, East Wind (fish bite least, full moon (they eat at night), water level too high or red tide sneaking in. I had a hard time finding mullet to throw the net at too. Anyway the weather and boating was great but the catching was horrible. I did drive everywhere (40miles) trying everything from the big jetties to Pringle Lake.

I hope ya'll do (did) better.

Don

Thanks STA, for the guides name, I may look him up for future trips. Daughter had homecoming festivities on Fri. but went to POC on Sat morning to help brother-in-law with some electrical work, went out Sun morn from 8 till 1 with some live shrimp and caught my first ever limit of reds, 1-23",2-26" and a 24" black drum.Also caught gafftop and mangrove snappers. These were all at the jetties (north side), and the current was really moving.
Hope to be taking my wife this weekend if the weather holds.

Hey Poc-ed,
So were you on the bay side of the Big jetty, is that what you mean by North?

Those currents can be pretty strong. I assume that you fished on the bottom. How much weight did you use? That seems to be my problem when I go out there with a strong current that it kind of rises with the current too much and then when I weight it down it seems a bit much for my rod.

Don

Don

yeah those currents are pretty strong, but once you anchor in to one of the coves, the current slackens a bit. We use anywhere from 6to 8 ounces on a 6 ft heavy rod. The north side of the jetties, I mean as you go out towards the gulf, the jetty wall on the left, inside the jetty, not the beach side. Hope that helps, also we got our shrimp at boathouse bait.

Tks Poc-ed. I was at that location on Friday. Waves were hitting those rocks quite impressively. We hung on but all we could get that day was gaff tops. I am thinking that fishing there the location of fish can be pretty tight so your neighbor may be catching them but you may not. I need to take something rigged with a stiff rod like you mention instead of my cork popping rig.

I tried going around and fishing the surf (no one else was doing it) and I guess I found out why I was the only one there.

hey sorry for the late report. well i didnt do as good as a thought i would. i did not catch one trout the whole trip and only one undersized red! all i caught were big hardheads and gafftops the whole time. i think that cold front that blew in saturday threw it off. sunday as we were leaving i saw about 80 trout in an icechest that some guides had caught that day and that made me feel even worse. but it wa s still fun to get out

Those guides are good. All the pix I see they usually take their customers out and post them on a wade. I haven't got too into the wading. Too much trouble and then I'm out their with a huge hardhead on the line trying to get it off in waist deep water.


If you want to catch fish and learn how those guides are the way to go. They work hard and earn their money.

I was able to catch one spec in 3 days down there.
The water was high and we were able to do a lot of drivng around to see where I can get the boat in and out. Lots of undersize reds however. What did you use for bait? As I mentioned before they could even get shrimp for Saturday.

Keep trying. You know what they say.

why have the tides been so high lately at POC? We went out on the 23rd and didnt start catching trout till around 10:30. Caught 6 keeper trout and one 20" flounder. Most trout were small and all reds caught were 16-19. But the action was non stop for at least 4 hours. Any one else been out lately?