Blues and Jacks in Summer Pattern

My fishing has been limited lately for various reasons. However the weather has been nice and fish are biting like it was summer. Most pros will tell you to slow down you retrieve in the winter to increase your opportunity of a hookup. Lately, with Indian Summer settling in water temperatures have warmed nicely as the day goes by and the bite is more like summer time.

On a recent outing I found both jacks and bluefish willing to take a plastic bait. Usually in the Winter I am using smaller baits like the Rip Tide 3 inch Mullet. On this winter day the fish preferred a larger bait. I started getting hookups when I switched to the 5 inch Rip Tide Flats Chub. The best color seemed to be something on the light side. Both the Gold Apricot and the Gold n' Glow worked well.


The jacks were the more plentiful and would fight for the right to eat one of the chubs. The 5 inch bait was rigged on a ¼ ounce Rip Tide Pro jig head. Rigged this way allows for long casts that cover a lot of territory. If you got a hit and missed, another jack was right there to take you on. That's what I mean by biting like it was summer. They were very aggressive.


I didn't catch as many blues that day, but they were just as aggressive. They were biting on the same 5 inch plastics and they wanted them swimming fast. It is always a good idea to vary your presentation until you pattern the fish on any given day. On this day it was larger baits than normal and faster retrieves than normal. It was more like summer fishing, but in the winter.

That's what it's all about. Good fishin'.

Capt. Ron Presley

Fish Species: Blues and Jacks
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About The Author: Captain Ron Presley

Company: Inshore Fishing Adventures

Area Reporting: Cocoa Beach - Orlando - Cape Canaveral

Bio: Visit the beautiful Space Coast of Florida and fish with a professional Florida fishing guide using light tackle for Red Fish, Speckled Sea Trout. Snook, Tarpon, and more. Captain Ron guides the waters of the Banana River, Indian River, and the Canaveral Basin near Orlando, Daytona Beach, Cocoa Beach, Titusville and Port Canaveral. This Florida fishing guide has only one objective in mind, to give you a fishing experience to remember in the Cocoa Beach area!

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