On the Water: January fishing across Southwest Florida
With 2024 behind us, let’s look ahead to a new year of fishing and with luck, no hurricanes. January is generally our coolest month, and our water temperature will be the lowest of the year. Lucky for us, Southwest Florida cool fronts only last a day or two, then it’s back to sunny, mild days. There should be plenty of great opportunities on the water this month.
With cooler days and water temperature of winter, shrimp is the top or preferred bait for most species. If you prefer throwing artificial baits, soft plastics in shrimp patterns are your best bet.
Seatrout are the most popular inshore gamefish in Florida and hungry through the winter months. Fish for them in 4 to 8-foot depths across grass flats, around the edges of sand holes and bar edges. On the cooler days they often relocate to deeper protected areas where the water is not as cold. These could be residential canals and waterways, bays and oyster bars.
Favorite trout baits include live shrimp freelined or suspended under a popping or rattling float. Scented DOA shrimp and a wide variety and color of soft plastic baits allow you to cast and retrieve to cover a lot of area, and they catch fish. If it’s cold, fish baits near bottom and slow down your retrieve.
Winter and cold weather are the best time for catching sheepshead. You will find sheepshead hanging around some type of structure as they feast on barnacles, oysters, worms, small crabs and other critters that live around these areas. Structure may include dock, pier and bridge pilings, rock piles or jetties, oyster bars or any submerged structure that has life on it. Nearshore, in gulf waters, large sheepshead are caught around the many artificial reefs well within sight of land and over ledges and hard coral bottom.
Shrimp is the top bait for sheepshead. They have a small mouth full of big crusher teeth, so a large bait isn’t necessary. Fish baits on bottom with just enough weight to keep it there and use a small sharp hook or jig head. Sheepshead often bite best on the coldest days.
If fishing nearshore in gulf waters, expect to catch mangrove and lane snapper, tasty grunts and possibly permit or grouper along with sheepshead. Good bottom fishing in gulf waters is often between 25-50 feet, a short run offshore on a nice day.
Red grouper season reopens on the first of the year. While it’s possible to catch keeper size fish nearshore, most grouper diggers begin fishing depths around 60 feet out to well over a hundred. Most often, the deeper the water the larger the grouper.
Chances are good at hooking redfish and pompano over the month. Around inshore waters they are often caught while targeting sheepshead or seatrout. Pompano are generally on the move along bar drop-offs, shorelines, off oyster bars and, like sheepshead, they only eat mollusks and crustaceans; fish is not in their diet. Shrimp is a top bait for pompano along with a small colorful jig most anglers call a silly or pompano jig. When slow bounced across a sandy bottom it mimics a shrimp or small crab escaping.
Redfish range over a wide area. They might show up on the flats and bar edges while trout fishing, around oyster bars, mangrove shorelines and the same structure mentioned for sheepsheads. Redfish are scent feeders; their eyesight isn’t the best, so they rely on their nose. Shrimp is a great bait and often rigged with the tail pinched off on a jig head. This allows shrimp scent in the water. Another proven method is to find a likely area to hold reds such as a shoreline or structure and fish cut bait like pinfish, sardines, mullet or ladyfish on bottom.
Stay up to date with fishing regulations by visiting the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission at: www.myfwc.com. Also, upload the Fish Rules app on your phone. It has current regulations with pictures to help identify fish.
I hope everyone has a great New Year and takes some time to spend on the water.
As a lifetime resident of Matlacha and Pine Island, Capt. Bill Russell has spent his life fishing and learning the waters around Pine Island and Southwest Florida.