St. Patrick’s Day is the mythical start to the spring trolling season. Usually about this time the bait is migrating from offshore, and from the south, and with it come Spanish mackerel, king mackerel, cobia, sharks, bonito and more.

To begin the season I always start trolling hardware using some combination of #1 planers with a  #0 or #1 silver spoons and #3 planers with a 6 inch spoons or an 8 inch big lipped plug.

The smaller spoons will catch the mackerel with the big spoons focused on the kingfish. You will catch a variety of fish of all sizes on the spoons including nice gag grouper. If you do catch grouper mark the spot and come back when the season opens.

The places to target first are the artificial reefs. The bait seems to move in there first and hold there the longest. Another good spot is markers 1-2 and 3-4 in the Egmont ship channel.

The mackerel and kingfish season should only get better the closer we get to April with the historic peak about the middle of April.

The last few cold fronts have congregated fish into the residential canals. Dock fishing with live shrimp has been off the charts with redfish, speckled trout, a few snook and worlds of sheepshead available.

Offshore fishing has been good when anglers can get out. Amberjack, mangrove snapper, an occasional kingfish or black fin tuna and catch and release grouper are providing the action.