Changing weather means it’s time to adjust your fishing targets

Summer’s grip on Florida might finally be gone. Even though the calendar says November, last week still felt like September.

With water temperatures that have been over 80 degrees, flats anglers have been raving about great fishing. The big three -- redfish, snook and trout -- have been fairly easy to coax into eating. Ample bait around has meant captains have had it almost too easy.

Capt. Brett Norris has been fishing non stop, enjoying the warmth.

“I don’t think I’ve had a day off in a month,” he said. “The fishing’s been so good.”

I was able to join Norris along with my father, Rob Chapman III, and brother Rob Chapman IV for an afternoon trip on Tampa Bay to see what the good fishing has been all about. My truck read 90 degrees before we hopped on Norris’ 24-foot Ranger, giving the feeling that warm afternoon water temperatures would mean active fish.

“What do you want to catch?” Norris asked.

“One-inch slam, obviously,” I jokingly replied.

We headed for a deep grass flat where Norris says redfish roam for a short time during the fall.

“It’s been a couple hundred fish,” he explained. “There’s a lot of overslot fish that move around so it can be hard to find them.”

His first attempt at searching yielded no results. We took off for another nearby flat where redfish had also been present.

Norris hopped on the trolling motor and began looking around.

“There they are, a knot of them,” he said, as he headed to the livewell to begin chumming heavily.

All around, the baits he chummed began to get eaten. Our hooked baits yielded trout after trout and a few mixed in mackerel that would cut lines as well.

Norris was a bit surprised that the redfish didn’t stick around or revisit where he saw them. Earlier in the week at the same flat he said it was a redfish every cast. After getting our fill of trout, we left to search for snook.

Unfortunately the snook weren’t fired up with the tide coming to a standstill. We caught a few, but they seemed lethargic, eventually giving way a surprise 24-inch trout that was a nice addition to the day’s catch. The next stop, however, provided some magical moments.

Norris lowered his Power Poles and anchored the boat in around 6 feet of water.

“There’s a bunch of rocks and ledges here. A lot of grouper,” he said as he started to chum live bait.

He grabbed bigger spinning rods and hooked up pinfish. When they hit the water gag grouper immediately ate, and after a quick tug of water were released.

Over the ledge, gag grouper were literally coming out of the water to eat chummed baits. Skyrocketing grouper is not something normally seen.

“This will only get better when the water temperatures drop more,” Norris said. “We caught a few keepers this week and there will be even more over the next month.”

After catching and releasing at least a dozen grouper we checked one more time for redfish at the first flat. This time, Norris’ intuition led to their finding.

We posted up as Norris loaded the chum bat with some of the last baits in the well. When they hit the water, he saw them. “There they are, get a bait in them.”

Immediately a doubleheader was hooked up. When they were released, the same happened again. Eventually my dad pulled one out of the school that was just over 37 inches, a truly beautiful fish for the flats of Tampa Bay. We caught and released about 10 before calling it a night.

While the flats fishing might begin to suffer as a result of cooler weather other fishing will surely be getting better. Like Norris said, more grouper will be moving shallow while species like kingfish and hogfish will be targets with water temperatures dropping. Look for changing water temperatures to mean changing targets heading into colder months.

This story was originally published November 10, 2019 at 5:00 AM.