Inshore Fishing Tips

This is the best time of the year for exciting top-water action from the surf, inlet or boat while casting walking topwater lures!

Learn how a veteran Mobile Bay saltwater fishing guide reads clues to locate and catch more fish.

“People think I’m joking when I say I smell the redfish,” Capt. Patric Garmeson of Ugly Fishing said with a smile as he leaned back against the bull redfish on the end of his line.

Moments earlier, the veteran charter caption had announced “smelling them” and turned his head to look upwind. Something obviously looked good because he immediately turned the boat with his trolling motor, moved in the direction he had looked and made long cast with a swimbait. The hook-up was almost immediate!

Garmeson doesn’t literally smell redfish. However, he can smell clues that predator fish are feeding, so when Garmeson catches a whiff of that scent, he knows to seek its source.

Popping corks serve several important functions for inshore fishing and can be used with artificial lures or natural bait. Learn to get the most out of these highly useful tools.

Few occurrences capture fishing fun quite like a float darting out of sight when a fish grabs a bait. The same thing is true whether you’re talking about a balsa pencil float disappearing when bluegill grabs a cricket or when a large saltwater popping cork gets yanked under by a redfish plowing a soft-plastic minnow.

In that sense, a popping cork, like a Bomber Paradise Popper X-Treme, is really just a big bobber. Used properly, though, a popping cork does far more than let you know when redfish or speckled trout takes your bait. It helps deliver offerings to the best areas, suspends them in the strike zone, calls fish from afar and urges the gamefish into feeding mode.

We’ll examine the situations that lend themselves well to using a popping cork and then dig into how and how to rig popping corks and fish them effectively.

Want to catch more fish on topwater lures? Check out these saltwater fishing tips from a top coastal guide.

Few things in fishing create more excitement than a big saltwater predator fish coming from nowhere to devour a topwater lure. Thankfully, beyond maximizing the thrill of every strike, properly used topwater lures produce some of the best saltwater fishing action for inshore species like redfish and spotted seatrout (speckled trout).

Capt. Patric Garmeson of Ugly Fishing Charters in coastal Alabama makes regular use of saltwater topwater lures to deliver exciting fishing action for his clients. We spoke with Garmison, who guides year-round in and around Mobile Bay, about his topwater approach and about the lures he uses to call up the best surface action.

Follow these saltwater fishing tips to tap into fast and exciting fishing action in your area.

Weakfish have been far more plentiful in New Jersey bays this year than has been the case for several years. Let’s look at the best weakfish lures and strategies for catching these popular gamefish.

One speckled saltwater jewel captures the hearts of New Jersey anglers during the summer – weakfish. Remember them? Seems like it’s been way too long that we’ve said the word weakfish much in fishing reports around New Jersey or had reason to discuss how to catch weakfish. Reasons for their lack of presence in recent years has been hotly debated with varying theories, though none scientifically proven.

In the late 1990s I recall heading out for a morning in Barnegat Bay and having no problem tangling with a half dozen 5- to 10-pound tide-runners before sunup on soft baits, then grass shrimping hundreds of weakfish in the 2-to-4-pound range all day long. The mid- to late 2000s saw a marked decline in the fishery. Some springs since, they’ve sort of shown up, with a dozen here and there. Other years, you wouldn’t hear of one being caught.

So far in 2022, a wild rebound has been happening in the backwaters and surf from one tip of the state to the other, with fish from 2 to 12 pounds seemingly haunting the backwaters in solid numbers. So, let’s look at how to catch weakfish and where to find them.

Selecting saltwater lures that allow you to effectively work the best part of the water column can help you catch more fish.

“Take it from the top.”

That phrase typically suggests going back to the beginning of a scene or song in some sort of rehearsal, but it’s also a good strategy for choosing saltwater lures for finding redfish or trout and tapping into the day’s finest action. Surface lures can be highly effective for prompting bites and serve up extra fun fishing. So, starting on top simply makes sense.

That said, some days fish will mostly near the bottom or somewhere between the top and bottom, so it’s valuable to have a “top to bottom” selection of saltwater lures and test offerings that work all parts of the water column, allowing the fish to reveal their daily preferences.

Learn the secrets of a lifelong Jacksonville angler and veteran guide and how he uses minnow-imitating lures for redfish, spotted seatrout, snook, striped bass and more.

Every successful angler I have had the pleasure of fishing with seems to have a niche – something that angler is exceptionally good at doing. Some have multiple niches. From what I have witnessed, it is usually working a particular lure or style of lure in a specific manner. It’s often a relatively simple technique, once mastered, but it often involves some very fine details, and those details make the angler stand out from others. 

Much of my fishing success and success I have enjoyed guiding clients on inshore waters in Jacksonville, Florida occurs while fishing shallow-running minnow-imitating lures. Keys for me include keeping lures in the right depths, retrieving them properly and presenting them with the right tackle. 

Over the years I have found a variety of different shallow runners that get the job done for me.  Probably 60 percent of my fishing success is with shallow-water crankbaits, and I use them extensively for spotted seatrout, redfish, striped bass, largemouth bass, snook and more.

Splashy surface lures and rattling corks call in fish, allowing you to cover more range. Use this lethal 1-2 punch for redfish, speckled trout and more.

“Topwater should be good here,” Chris Holleman said, as he put down the trolling motor and eased into a cut. The bottom was shallow and snaggy, with a mix of shell and downed trees, and those snags typically hold snook and redfish, Holleman has found, and the tide had good movement to put the fish in feeding mode.

My second cast with a Super Spook Boyo confirmed the suspicions of Holleman, who operates Blue Cyclone Fishing Adventures in Jacksonville.

Having redfish and speckled trout violently attack topwater lures is extraordinarily fun. Anyone who has sampled this action knows that. Topwater virtues extend past being an extra exciting way to catch fish, though. In many situations, a noise surface lure provides the finest option for working an area and prompting strikes, and at times the topwater lures produce larger fish than subsurface offerings.

Brutally strong fish and vicious topwater strikes make a fabulous combination. Here’s what you need to know to get in on exciting bluefish action this summer.

Pound for pound, bluefish are known as the hardest fighting inshore fish along the Northeast coast. Blues demand respect, punishing rods, destroying lures with knife-bladed teeth, ripping drags, and blowing up reels with powerful runs.

Ask other anglers: Topwater popping for any gamefish typically tops the list of exciting ways to fish. When you get topwater blow-ups from 10-, 15- and even 20-pound alligator bluefish, the adrenaline meter goes through the roof.

You don’t need to fish from a boat to catch snook. You can wade fish the flats and take the “dog” for a walk, too.

Can you walk the dog? No, not the four-legged kind. I mean a cigar-shaped topwater lure that launches like an arrow and walks and talks to gamefish on the way back. The walk is twitch left, twitch right, twitch left, twitch right. The talk is clickity-clickity-click. It’s a dinner bell for predators. Florida’s saltwater snook come a runnin’.

This is far from “deep sea” fishing. It’s casting light tackle in mostly knee-deep water. You can use your boat to motor to the a, then hop out and wade. But you don’t even need a boat. Drive your car to a waterfront park. Hike to the shoreline. Put on wading boots. Wade in. Walk the dog. Map and satellite imaging on your devices are terrific for finding places to park-and wade

Choosing the right float and rig allows for targeted presentations that produce excellent catches of sea trout and other inshore saltwater species.

“It’s the old time way to fish for trout around here. What everyone use to do,” Chris Holleman said as we stood side by side on the back deck of his boat, watching pole floats drift slowly away from us.

“And it’s a great way to catch fish,” he added with a smile as his float shot under and he set the hook into a sea trout.

Float fishing with large slip-style floats like Thill Big Fish Sliders and Weighted Pole Floats, allows you present live bait just off the bottom, where trout like to feed, and to effectively work areas to locate schools of fish. It produces well year ‘round but is especially effective during winter, when spotted sea trout (also commonly called speckled trout) tend to congregate in deeper holes in tidal creeks, rivers and canals.