Fishing In and Around Cold Fronts

When it comes to fishing in and around Cold Fronts, you can throw your typical game plan out the window. An impending Cold Front typically means increased (sometimes drastically) winds and a sharp drop in temperature. Like an immediate reach for your favorite jacket, the fish seek warmth just as fast… and they’ll eat like champs just prior to the front. With these two things in mind, you can formulate a new game plan… getting out before the front is the best option, but when that cannot happen make sure you can hide from the wind and target fish hiding in deeper water or muddy bottoms. In Flamingo, you can also take advantage of the heavy North winds that simply push all the water out of Florida Bay, by targeting the edges of flats, preferably in moving water channels.

Happy Birthday Dad
With my Dad’s birthday coming up, I made arrangements to treat he and my brother to a day in the Park… lucky enough, it worked out to be the day just prior to the Cold Front. They were treated indeed… Tarpon were out in full force, crashing on anything that moved. Snook were stacked up on nearly every point or downed tree. Redfish were schooled up tight and literally on every flat we fished. The rust and cob webs of their rarely used fishing skills were evident, but the fish were very eager to please.

The South Carolina Boys
When Graham, James & John packed their truck, boat and gear early Thursday morning for their annual camping trip to ENP, they simply could not have predicted the events that would unfold over the next four days. I will let them tell the whole story, as only they can… but, I will say that I found them Sunday morning camping outside the marina store cold, wet and tired. I was to be their grand finale, but with the winds a steady 25 mph and gusts upwards of 30 mph, my work was cut out for me big time.

We loaded into my Maverick HPX-T and headed out with little fear. Unfortuntely, the previous days’ Tarpon were long gone, but the Snook were still around. They each caught a few, but the bruiser that hit John’s Skitterwalk would get away twice … With the wind pushing the water out hard, we had to leave quickly. Later we found hefty Redfish taking advantage of mudding rays on the edge of channels… the muds were easy to spot in spite of the heavy winds and nearly every one had hungry fish that made short work of the bass assassin paddle tails we were using.

Great work guys… I bet you never had to work so hard