Fresh Flagler Beach Fishing Reports

I took an early morning charter before heading off to a tournament a few hours away in Georgia. Even as I was setting the lines up, they were getting hit. We reeled in whiting, bluefish, baby pompano, and jack crevalle. Location for in Ormond by the Sea, and this father and son was very happy with the fish we pulled in.

I took an early morning charter before heading off to a tournament a few hours away in Georgia. Even as I was setting the lines up, they were getting hit. We reeled in whiting, bluefish, baby pompano, and jack crevalle. Location for in Ormond by the Sea, and this father and son was very happy with the fish we pulled in.

This week started out great for me to be able to teach some people to fish. Jessica is a friend of mine and her father, Hubert or Hubie, was in town for the weekend, so she decided to bless him with a surprise surf-fishing charter. I got set up about 30 minutes before they arrived and started immediately catching some small spotfish, which I threw in the bucket with some water to keep them alive for bait. When Jess's dad arrive and I showed him the fish, his comment was "What are you trying to catch if you're using THAT for BAIT?" Well, I guess we will never know, lol. I rigged several of those spotfish up different ways on a Carolina rig with a 3 oz. egg sinker. First the line was going crazy and it bit the hook right off at the shoreline. The next spotfish got bit in half, so I rigged it in the mouth and whatever it was ate right up to the face but didn't get the hook. They are smart! We can only speculate of the "one that got away" and how big it was, lol. Between all the big hits, we were catching a lot more spots and some nice whiting, and a few smaller sharks. I taught them the proper way to cast for surf fishing (hard for Hubie because he is left-handed and all my setups are right handed, but he got the hang of it), and we looked for sand fleas. What a fun way to start the day and the week!

Sam booked a charter with me on a day that I forgot to block off because I was fishing a tournament, but it worked out beautifully! I was set up before the sun came up, and once Sam arrived, he started learning a lot about surf-fishing, saying that it was so awesome to be out on the beach that he didn't care if we caught fish or not. Surf fishing is super addicting and unlike any other kind of fishing! I started reeling in a line to check the bait and felt a fish on, so I handed it off to Sam and he reeled in a nice bluefish! Not long later, a line got hit and I brought in a 12.5 inch pompano (to the fork). The water was a bit dirty so my friend who was with me was catching some catfish (not her target species), and I also reeled in a big gaftopsail catfish (we thought it was a shark because of how it was swimming in--they put up a nice fight!) After the charter, my friend and I decided to move to a beach further south but could not find parking or easy beach access anywhere. After almost 2 hours of driving we found a long pathway over the dunes that was about 200 yards long with lots of stairs up and down. It was hard but we ended up with about another hour and a half to fish. We had to walk out to the 1st sandbar to cast, and I finally got my whiting for the tournament. I almost had 5th place for pompano secured, but got bumped off the board in the last 10 minutes of the weigh in. Oh well, it was a fun, awesome day anyway. Tight lines!

Past coulle trips have been good ones, lots of schooling fish right now throwing live shrimp under docks and cut bait in tbe flats.