From Ron Brooks,
Your Guide to Saltwater Fishing.
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When summer fishing is over for the most part, lots of us are preparing for the changes that colder water temperatures bring. Tactics, locations, and tackle choices usually change to fall fishing with the colder weather.

Just as anglers are changing, the fish are changing as well. We ran into that situation on one particular trip. Fishing off of Northeast Florida, we hit a mixture of summertime and cold weather fishing.

Late Summer Fishing Season

We launched out of St. Augustine very early and took a chance by heading for one of the closer artificial reefs about nine miles offshore to look for bait. Cigar minnows and Spanish sardines usually disappear with the onset on cold weather, but a report from a friend who had fished only two days earlier told us the bait was still out there.

Catching Bait

We spent an hour or so catching live bait, and then drifted to fish the entire area. One very nice Spanish mackerel, and one small king mackerel, a snake, cooperated for us.

As the sun began to rise in the east, we caught a few more baitfish and then made the run to another reef farther offshore. The sixteen-mile trek took us about an hour because of a rather short and deep ground swell, but we arrived dry and ready to fish.

An area of old culverts mixed with live bottom had proven to be very productive this past summer, so we dropped our live baits to the bottom and began drifting the area. In short order we had one large lane snapper in the box. Several hook-ups resulted in cut offs and we brought in the front half of some grouper and snapper.

The Summer Fishing Pattern

The summertime pattern on these wrecks and artificial reefs includes barracuda – lots of them. Often it is almost impossible to get a whole fish in the boat. As the water begins to cool in the winter, they normally migrate south. Today, they were over the reef in force.

I’m not talking about some ten or fifteen pound barracuda. I’m talking about fish that were a good eight inches wide between the eyes, and well over five feet in length. They were cutting eight pound grouper and small amberjack in half with very little effort.

On one occasion I caught a blue runner that went about two pounds. Schools of these hard fighting cousins to a jack crevalle were butchering the baitfish on the surface. I released this one next to the boat, turned and put my rod down. As I leaned over the side to wash the fish off my hands, that blue runner was swimming up next to the boat and the engine, right on top of the water. I watched him for a minute or so, and then as he darted away from the boat, a barracuda of enormous proportions came out of nowhere like a freight train and took the blue runner skyward. I have not seen cudas that aggressive in many years.

The Barracuda Problem

I also have not seen as many cudas as we saw – summer or winter – over the wrecks and reefs. If we anchored the boat, they stacked up right under the keel, eight to ten of them. If we drifted, they drifted right along with us, just under the boat. Maybe we have inadvertently trained them to look for an easy meal coming up over the years, but whatever the reason, they persist on the good bottom within 25 miles from shore.

Missing the Fall Fishing Pattern

So here we are, fishing the fall weather, looking for some nice grouper and red snapper. To our dismay, we end up fighting off the cudas and catching several half-fish. Jason Marsh, with whom I was fishing, did manage once nice scamp around eighteen pounds, and several beeliners and small snappers. All in all, it was a pretty good day of fishing.

Bottom Line

Time will tell as to why the cudas are more numerous right now. Could it be global warming? Who knows? One thing is certain. There are more of them and they are staying longer now than in past years. We will need to deal with them if they stay. How about you? Do you fish in cold weather? Tell us about it on our Reader Submission Page, or on our Saltwater Fishing Forum!