Fishing the Ten Thousand Islands in June

Here we are in late May and the Snook are finally showing up on the outside Islands! This should continue into the summer and make for some great fishing in the Islands. I always remember the old timers saying, "When the Royal Poinciana trees are blooming, the Snook show up on the beaches." Well those trees are blooming and the Snook have showed up! They knew what they were talking about. I haven't caught any really big fish yet but we have got a few 33"-34" fish this past week. The winds are still persisting and it can add to the challenge. Especially if you are looking for live bait! The rough water can make it difficult for this. And it also makes it hard to utilize top water lures along the Islands. Snook tend to love this early in the morning and it makes for an exciting bite! As the winds start to lay down, and they will, I will start doing more of this. 

The Snook are also still biting in the backcountry. The biggest fish I got this month was in the back and measured 38". It seems the best plan is to make a lot of moves until you locate a few fish and then work that area really slow. We have had some good tides this week and this has helped. Current is definitely a big factor in finding feeding fish. Especially when water temps are up. Moving water will be cooler and the fish will respond better. Remember, you are on the hunt, so just keep on covering the shoreline and sooner or latersomething will happen. 

We also started catching a few nice Reds this month. It was a real struggle last month so this is a nice change. I am finding them on the same shorelines as the Snook and most of them have been really decent sized fish averaging around 24"-25" with some larger. I am not seeing these fish even though we are fishing two to three feet of water, because the winds have been keeping it stirred up. But they are definitely hanging around some structure as we have lost a few to break offs. They are feeding mostly on crabs right now so getting your bait on the bottom will help. As I always do I use Owner Light Wire Circle hooks to help prevent fish from being gut hooked. Once you perfect these you will lose less fish and almost never have one gut hooked.  

We spent some time looking for Permit this month but with the winds being so strong it has been difficult to spot them. There are some out on the wrecks, but I do not fish these. I find them when they are moving inshore on the incoming tides but only when the winds are favorable. Sight casting these fish is a lot of fun and they put up a great fight! June is usually a great month for this and I look forward to it. When conditions are right you can spot these fish a long way off. Once you spook the school it can become very difficult to get a bite, so approach slow and quiet and you may catch several fish out of the same school. I always drop the trolling motor if they are not moving too fast. A long cast leading the fish and you just might get lucky.  

 Tarpon are still around and typically we will have some fish here all summer. Again, winds can make it difficult, so June is a great month as visibility gets better. The big fish are on the outside right now but this too will change. We are seeing fish move into back bays and rivers as the Mullet start to move in. The Tarpon love Mullet, and as more move in so will the Tarpon. I saw a huge school of Mullet offshore for about a week, then today they were gone. We had a little rain yesterday so I think this moved the fish. It looked like a school of several thousand so they might have broken up into smaller schools and started to move inshore. This adds more food for the Snook, Reds, and Tarpon! Looking forward to seeing some top water feeding going on. 

The bottom line for our inshore fishing this month is once the winds die down some more and the baits move inshore the fishing should really fire up. This usually happens when we start getting some rain and hopefully it starts real soon! Good luck fishing and stay hydrated as summer heats up!