Nature Coast, William Toney 11/21/2016

This will be a short and sweet fishing report because I am heading up to the family hunting camp to have Thanksgiving. Our hopes will be to kill a big buck, hike into the salt marsh to shoot ducks and gather oysters for my moms delicious oyster dressing. Our family’s traditions are very special and I hope that your family has a special Thanksgiving and blessed time together.

The trout bite has been good but with the cold front this week expect the first part to be a little slow but with warming temps Black Friday might turn into trout Friday. Look for a good bite with moving water at or around the river and creek mouths in the morning. As the sun heats the outgoing tide during the middle part of the day try the adjacent flats with good rock grass. The redfish bite around the keys near the river and creek mouth has been good on the incoming tide. In the Homosassa River a few keeper mangrove snapper are being caught on live shrimp. At MacRae’s fuel docks today a young angler caught a lost black sea bass that was 14 inches! I don’t know if it was lost or capitalized on the free dead shrimp that are culled.

West of St. Martins Keys my clients on Friday experience a “mud”. A mud is when many species of fish will feed up on a shrimp hatch on a flats usually less then eight feed. The fish will turn the clear water into a coffee color that will be easy to spot on a clear day. We caught trout, big spanish mackerel, blue fish, pompano and huge black drum. The incoming tide will be in the morning this weekend. W