September will mean "redfish" all over the Florida Gulf Coast.   Shorter days, with slightly cooler temperatures and hordes of large schools of redfish of varying sizes, these fish will be feeding with more zeal than the previous few months from the Pensacola area, through the rest of the Panhandle, Big Bend, Nature Coast on down to the Everglades region.  During the spawning time of red drum, the large breeder female schools approach the west central Gulf Coast, piling up near the passes and often swimming onto the first flats inside the passes.   Bigger rods and reels are necessary for these larger redfish.    The smaller "slot" sized redfish will be ganged up in bigger groups as they maraud the shallows all over the inshore Gulf waters. 

 

Normally a good snook fishing month for the Tampa Bay area, numbers are considerably lower than normal years.   The FWC has extended the closed season on this species and considering continuation of the closure for harvest.  The fish that are caught will not be in big schools but there are snook possibilities around.   Keep these fish in the water as much as possible, give them the proper support if they are lifted and then quickly get these fish back into the water, revived and released.   Down into the Southwest Florida region, snook numbers are much better.  Many of these fish will be found in the swashes on the beach and can be targeted with lures and flies by simply walking a beach until you spot the fish in the water.  

 

Tarpon are off the beaches around the Tampa Bay area and can be caught in the shadows of the bridges at night or during the other peak tides in the early mornings.   Anglers in the Big Bend and Panhandle area should get out after the tarpon this month before they migrate south as September wears on.  

 

Speckled trout stocks are outstanding.  With an extensive recovery since the last episodes of red tide in 2006, this species provides a lot of outstanding action for anglers in Southwest Florida all the way to the Panhandle of Florida.   The best time to find feeding trout will be "early or late" and usually they will be staying in deeper waters the month of September for the west central to southwest part of the Gulf.   In the Nature Coast area to the north and west,   trout fishing should get very good during a longer period of the daylight hours.

 

The best of the rest:  Flounder are a great fish to catch if you know where to find them.    The "pass" areas will hold these flatfish up and down this coast.  Targeting sandy bottom areas where the sand meets another kind of structure, whether than be seagrass, rocks, a wreck, oyster bar, or bridge piling and you may be into some flatties.   Baits or lures have to be kept down on the bottom to get strikes.    August closed out with catches of large flounder a regularity.    Work them in to your fishing plans and enjoy one of the best eating fish the Gulf has to offer.

 

Mackerel and pompano will also be caught this month.   King mackerel will be in the northern Gulf and well offshore all of this month.   Spanish mackerel will be, well just about everywhere!   Mature bait school will translate to masses of mackerel crashing through those bait pods all over the state.   Pompano will be off the beaches of northwest Florida, inside the passes of west central Florida and on the deeper grassflats behind the barrier islands in the south Suncoast region.