Scattered shrimp and some weird fish North Florida 11-22-15

Scattered shrimp and some weird fish

jim SUTTOn FISHING REPORT

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

The river remains high. Recent northeast winds have backed it up again, after a few days of draining last week. The shrimp run is dead down around Lake George. The old-timers figure the last of the big shrimp rode the tide north and out the inlet at Mayport during the draining. The reports up the river have been sparse  except up around Governor Creek, where there are reports of good catches of big shrimp. We may see another late runs of shrimp, but more likely the smaller ones already down around Palakta will contine to move south, grow up some and head back out the inlet when water temperatures drop.

The bass fishing is great if you can net decent-sized live shrimp. The bass, striper and redfish are all reportedly insistent on that this week.

The bluegill and shell-cracker bite it excellent on Lake George. Lochloosa remains ground zero for the deep-water speckled perch bite  though some good reports are coming from Lake George for those fishing deep around the pilings lining parts of the big lake.

Catfishing is excellent all over the river, though few anglers are seeking them out. Their mistake. Mullet are schooling up all along the river and the cane-poling is great off the Shands Bridge abutments when the wind isnt coming from the north

 which is all it done lately.

**The intracoastal Waterway**

Basically the fishing has been good, but the problem remains the extra-high water due to northerly winds. There a big high tide, followed by a low tide that never really gets low.

The flounder bite has been about average  good  but the fish are getting bigger  3-pounders are staging up around the inlets. Theyre generally a tad smaller in the creeks.

There remain scads of little speckled trout in the ICW, and lots of rat reds. Keepers are far between, but being caught.

If youre looking for some plugging action rather than supper, the inlet is full of schools of jack crevalle up to 10 pounds and bluefish up to 5 pounds. By the way, both are excellent on the smoker as long as you bleed them quickly and smoke them fresh. It beats smoked kingfish  both oily and fat. A short brine in saltwater and sugar helps if you dont bleed them on the ice.

How to Fillet a Jack Crevalle
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Sheepshead are biting, but most tackle stores have been out of fiddler crabs for days. The high tides arent making it any easier to get you one either.

Randy at Avid Angler says he weighed a 2.9-pound Virginia croaker this week. That a stud.

The Guana Dam remains a hot spot because of the high tides. But it still rowdy and crowded most of the time. the Atlantic

Three have been few, short windows of opportunity to get outside the inlet this week with winds blowing since the weekend. A few boats did slip out  and most regretted it royally by the end of the day. As one captain put it “the seas were only three feet, but they were coming in from two directions. They got beat up and the fish were generally turned off. Not much else to say.

The surf fishing seems to be picking up, and it clearing up some following the bigger blow. It could be better this weekend, and the pompano are showing up at about the right time  though the surf temperature remain abnormally high. That may mean the pompano will pass us by quickly or stage up somewhere to the north, feeding until things get right. Well have to see about that. the weather

**It ugly offshore through the weekend, with northerly winds blowing again at 15 knots and seas generally 4 to 6 feet.**

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

**CoNtrIBUtED PHOTO** Kimberly Hazouri caught this critter Saturday while fishing with a crew that included her husband, Robbie, east of the inlet. The fish hit a piece of squid in about 110 feet of water. There are two different local opinions on this fish. One is that it a unicorn leatherjacket  or a unicorn filefish. Either way, it a neat fish. Captain Hazouri says it weighed around 12 pounds.