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good trout and redfish fishing locations without a boat in southeastern florida?

i live in port saint lucie florida and i fish the jetty in fort pierce or the many piers within a 25-35 mile distance from my house. I have been wanting to try out some inland saltwater fishing for some trout or redfish but every spot i have tried have ended up being a crappy spot. Hopefully i get some good answers to get me started. I have no boat so any wading or bank fishing spots will work.

Public Comments

1. Good Luck! Couldn't even tell ya! I heard there are good spots though out in tampa!

2. A trip out to “South Jetty Park” on the south side of Ft. Pierce Inlet at the end of Seaway Drive is a good spot to start with its 1,200 foot pier fishing “jetty” makes casting an ease. Vitolo Family Park and the pier at Lyngate Park in Port St. Lucie, its self is too a good place to catch fish. Wildcat Cove is a Bay is also located in the county of St. Lucie. Wildcat Cove is another Bay in the county of St. Lucie, at the India River off Jensen beach where wading the skinnies can produce some nice reds to snook. For more information, check out The Online Fisherman dot com as we are the fastest growing online angling website with the most technological ways of finding your fish anywhere.

3. Look for structure under the water at lowest tides for trout and heavy grass and weed lines for redfish and fish strong tides use live perch on a carolina rig with #4 circle hooks. The reds will most always feed in grassy areas and both love structure and depth changes just like Black Bass. Water color changes can be helpful as can gulls feeding and diving in water. Fish are very very mobile with tide movement, no bait in water means no fish to be caught, they follow the bait ALL the time 24/7 so find the bait.

4. Zach: Based on my past experience in wade fishing the Indian River shoreline between Vero Beach, and Fort Pierce it probably is not where, but how you are fishing that is the problem. When I lived in Vero Beach, we would regularly wade fish that section of the river with light spinning outfits, using 6 or 8 pound line, and plastic shrimp and grub tails. Rarely did we have no fish days.

The color of the tails is important, and may vary from solid (or clear) white to yellow or chartreuse and even clear, brownish yellow or brownish orange.The plastic tails should be made of soft plastic for more action, and they should be fished on 3/16th or 1/4 oz. red, white, yellow or chartreuse jig heads. A local tackle shop should help with determining the best colors to start with.

The best way to fish is to wade out to where the water is waist to chest deep, then cast the jig out from or parallel to the shoreline. They should be cast as far as possible, and should be retrieved slowly with a pause, lift, and drop: a hopping; or a slow reel and twitch style. The lift and drop method is the best once it is mastered. The jig colors should be occasionally changed until you start getting hits.

Once the retrieve is mastered, the secret to success is to constantly wade and cast, until you find a fish concentration area. The sequence should be; wade a short distance, pause, make several casts, then wade a short distance again. If you get a couple of strikes, but no fish remember the spot. It could be a concentration area, and the color of your plastic tail might not quite be the right color.

When you find a spot where you are consistently getting strikes and/or catching fish, mark the location indelibly in your mind by memorizing the shoreline at that point. Concentration areas are often consistent producers, and having them memorized means you can concentrate on those areas the next trip.

You should be prepared to wade a distance of a 1/2 mile to 1 1/2 miles in an exploratory trip. Make sure you wear light, full length pants while wading, as jellyfish can be a problem.

Finding access points can be difficult, but any point of access to flats is worth exploring; even spots used for family gatherings and wading and swimming, Just wade far enough down the shoreline to a point where the activity is not disturbing. Another good method of finding lesser known access points is to get a local map and find the roads that are shown to go down to, or close to the rivers' edge from A1A or 1. I explored by locating on the map, and driving down these roads, and many of them had river access at the end. When you find one of these spots look for signs of fishermen, like lure packets or bunches of old line. That is, of course, a good indication. I use to schedule time to just drive around looking for new access points.

The area you live in has great shore and wade fishing, so do not give up.

Best of luck! Cbill