Shrimp showing up on a blue moon 7-30-15

**FISHING REPORT**

**Shrimp showing up on a blue moon**

**JIM SUTTON**

**The St. Johns River and area lakes**

It been a long time coming, but it fair to finally say that the shrimp are in the river. Most of the action remains from Jacksonville down to Green Cove Springs. Theyre heading south and you can pick them up as far down as Dunn Creek. Theyll continue to grow and travel south.

These are not big just yet. But theyre certainly what we call “pilau-sized shrimp. And if youre on them, you can get three or four gallons in couple of hours.

The three public piers in Green Cove are popular places to be for shrimpers this week, as is the municipal dock in Palatka.

Even if you dont throw a net, it worth a trip there just before dark to see the weird mass of humanity that gathers there to chase these shrimp. I call them the “Crustacean Nation.

**A word about moons and shrimp.**

Tomorrow is a blue moon, which is the name given to any full moon that rises twice in a single month. We had one on July 1. And we have one Friday. This occurs just seven times in a 19-year metonic cycle, and is at the root of the term “once in a blue moon.

The one thing that a full moon will mean to a shrimper is that your catch might be a little spongy. Shrimp molt their shells on the big moons, and the replacements take a couple of days to harden. They can be a pain to peel, especially when theyre small  like now.

The bream bite that has been awful for the past three weeks went crazy this week. The only difference is that we had a couple of days of northerly breezes. But that enough to lower the water level and change things up.

Catfish, likewise, fired up. And there are reports of limits of summer speckled perch being caught in the middle of Lake Lochloosa, as weird as that may sound.

**The Intracoastal Waterway**

The flounder bite picked up all week. I suspect that will be true of the trout and redfish as well. There a definite change in the ICW since the little bit of north wind blew in this week. Henry Miles down at Devil Elbow swears that the change pushed schools of finger mullet into the inlet. He said it almost looked like a fall run. And he was watching a big school of “perfect flounder-sized mullet off his dock while we were talking. Sounds good to me.

The winds will shift back from the south, so if you can get out today or tomorrow, do it.

**the Atlantic**

The kingfish bite was hot Wednesday, and the guys out on the local reefs and wrecks said it was beautiful, flat and clear.

Sharks, a few bonito and some big amberjack were slurping down slow-trolled live pogies. The guys say there are big pods of these baitfish both north and south of the inlet.

The strange cold inversion on the beaches has turned back over or moved off  whatever those things do  and water temperatures are up 8 degrees along the beaches.

And if the pogies have moved back in with the warming temperatures, you can bet the kingfish will too  a few cobia as well.

he offshore bottom bite was still off, due to both cold water temperatures on the bottom (but getting better) and a tide that charter captains say is screaming out there, making it tough to get a bait to the bottom, let alone get it to stay.

**the weathe**r

Southwest winds will gently resume this weekend. The forecast is for a very calm day Friday. If you have sick days, it would be a great time to fake it. Saturday and Sunday will be almost as pretty, with 10-15 knot winds and seas of 2-3 feet, but a lot more boat traffic putting down the cobia, and bringing up the sharks, barracuda and amber-jack.

**Jim Sutton** provides a weekly fishing report for The Record. Reach him at jim.sutton@stau ° gustine.com °