Bait for April along our shore we should see Pilchards starting to show up and Silver Mullet moving north, thread herring “greenies” should be running the shadow lines of the piers and some of the piers will be holding a good amount of goggle-eyes.
Shrimp have been in the Broward area last month and I only saw a few good days, but I do expect to see a few in April so keep your dip nets and lanterns ready and if you see a good SE wind for a couple of days find a place you can shrimp from that is close enough to the water to use a 18 foot dip net, the inlets work and you can shrimp from the seawalls or rock jettys, Hillsboro Inlet would be my suggestion.
Mutton Snappers should begin to move in to the more hard bottom areas of our shores, Piers in and around jettys and the inlet channels, beaches where you are able to cast out to hardbottom “Rocky Sea Floor”
So the Northern Piers of Broward will likely see some Monster King Mackerel, Cobia and maybe even a few giant Bluefish this month, the kings that I have seen in past years and some go well over 30lbs, they also have there days with decent Muttons and Mangrove Snapper.
On the southern piers as the pilchard move in we will see some Nice Snook caught, Nice size Spanish Macks, March was a more consistent month for Pompano, Spanish macks, Bluefish and were caught with ease, this should continue through this month of April.
Best bet from the beach or pier for Pompano will be a double drop loop rig, #2 khale hooks with baited Sand Fleas or fresh shrimp. I advise you to cast as far from the beach as you can get or fish from a pier in the pompano area, it’s funny but they always seem to run in one area on a pier. Banana Jigs “daffy jig” Docs Goofy Jig all work well if you are jigging from the piers and sometimes you can score big time from the beach with jigs as long as they come in shallow though.
Tarpon will start to show up in more numbers heading towards the north at the end of the month, so get to ready to wrestle those 125 pounders from land if that your target species, nothing like trying to stop 100 plus fish from a fixed structure it is the challenge of all challenges the only other fish I know that is equally hard is those toothy critters Sharks, but nothing like the acrobatic show that the silver kings puts on, so get ready that time of year starts at the end of the of this month.
Happy Fishing, the Boatless Fisherman…aka Tom Argue…a Fishing Friend
