Inshore Saltwater Fishing Techniques

Inshore fishing is the least expensive form of fishing. While owning a boat is ideal, you can catch good quality fish from the beach, a fishing pier or the bank of a river. In this article, I will show you how to catch fish on a small budget.


Bank Fishing; Almost any river, inlet or canal can provide you with excellent fishing locations. The speed of the current and type of fish that are present in the area during the time of year that you are fishing, will determine the rigs that you should use. In fast current, use heavy bank sinkers to keep your bait where you want it. The faster the current, the heavier the sinker. A small to medium spinning or casting setup will work fine for this type of fishing. However, if the current is exceptionally strong, you may need a heavier rod, reel and line combination to be able to use the heavier sinkers. A small landing net will also come in handy if you hook a fish too large to pull out of the water by your line or you catch a fish with a weak mouth like the Weakfish (Yellow Mouth Trout). Most fish are lost in the final seconds of the fight when attempting to land the fish. You can use fishfinder rigs if the current is not to fast for an egg sinker since these sinkers are not meant to hold your bait stationary. A fishfinder rig is excellent when the current is slow to allow your bait to move along the bottom naturally giving the appearance of live bait or if you are using live bait, your bait can cover a large area by moving with the current so you can find the fish. However, in most cases where the current is strong, you'll want to use a drop rig such as a double hook rig and attach a pyramid or bank sinker.


Surf Fishing; Fishing from the beach is a great way to catch fish and enjoy the day, especially if you have kids that love to play on the beach. Fishfinder rigs are an excellent choice for surf fishing because they allow your bait to move down the beach with the current. This gives your bait a natural presentation to the fish and helps you find the right spot where the fish are feeding. The best place to fish along the beach is where there are deep cuts in the sandy bottom that are completely covered by water at high tide. Fish will move into these cuts and wait for shrimp and other crustations to get caught by the waves and current. You can find these cuts by going down to the beach at low tide, find the spot with the best cuts in the bottom near the waters edge and go back to that spot as the tide is coming in. The best time to fish these spots is from 2-hours prior to high tide until 2-hours after high tide. A high tide in the morning is better that a high tide in the afternoon. High tides in the evening can produce good fish as well, but on occasions you will catch more sharks than other species. Try to remember how far from the beach these cuts lay so that you are not casting past the cuts or dropping your baits too short. I usually place a minimum of two lines in the water, one in a sand spike with a two hook drop rig or three hook Pompano rig and either a heavy pyramid sinker or a surf breakaway sinker. The other line will have a fishfinder rig and I will hold this rod to walk it down the beach, if necessary, and feel the bite. When you hook a fish, fight the fish until the fish is in the rolling surf, then reel the fish in with the waves to avoid the fish bottoming out on the sandy bottom and breaking the line.



Pier Fishing; Pier fishing has the advantage of getting you offshore without a boat. There are many excellent fishing piers along the Florida coast. In my opinion, the best of them all is the Juno Beach Fishing Pier, just north of West Palm Beach, Florida. Here is a list of the fish that I have caught from this pier over the years; Pompano, Spanish Mackerel, Cero Mackerel, King Mackerel, Bonito, Permit, Spadefish, Lookdown, Snook, Redfish, Bluefish, Blue Runner, Jack Crevalle, Spinner Shark, Tarpon, Croaker, Whiting, and once I even hooked a Sailfish for a short time from the pier. The Gulf Stream is only a few miles offshore from this point along Florida's coast so you can catch many species of fish that would normally require a boat. Any of the rigs and rod/reel combinations that you use for bank of surf fishing can be used with one exception. If you want to land the bigger fish like large Snook, Bonito or Kingfish, it's best to use a heavy rod with a 4/0 reel and 20-30 pound test line. For these large fish, you will also need a pier landing net. These are composed of a large ring with a net attached and a 50 foot rope to be able to drop down the 20 feet or so to the water. You will also need a rod setup with a sabiki rig for catching live Pinfish, Greenies (Herring) or Sardines for bait. These baitfish lay under the pier in large schools. A sabiki rig has small hooks (#4 Sabiki works the best) with a feather attached to each hook. You jig these up and down in the water below the pier to catch your live bait (Note: Cast nets are not permitted on most fishing piers). Attach the live bait to your hook through the mouth or top of the head so that your bait can move naturally. For Mackerel, you may want to either add a treble hook on a wire leader 4 inches behind your main hook or hook the baitfish through its back just below its dorsal fin. Mackerel tend to attack their meal from behind and will cut them in half behind your main hook if the hook is near the head of the baitfish.

Have a great fishing experience. Fish On!