Kayak Fishing Vero Beach Florida Tips and Techniques
The key to kayak fishing Vero beach is to find bait schools and feeding fish. You can find your target species of fish around docks, bridge pilings, grass flats, along the mangrove islands and around the oyster bars.
Vero Beach has some amazing fishing spots for kayak fishermen. There are grass flats, oyster bars, tidal creeks, docks and bridges that hold tons of fish.
Vero Beach is one of those spots that has managed to remain somewhat healthy in spite of the toxic algae blooms and sea grass die offs that have occurred along the Treasure Coast in recent years.
I am a kayak fishing guide on the Treasure Coast of Florida. My charters run from Vero Beach down to Stuart and everywhere in between.
I have been fishing the grass flats and mangrove islands all over Florida for more than 40 years. In the article below, I will teach you just about everything that I know about kayak fishing in and around Vero Beach.
Let's get started.
Watch the video below and catch more tarpon.
The key to kayak fishing Vero beach is to find bait schools and feeding fish. You can find your target species of fish around docks, bridge pilings, grass flats, along the mangrove islands and around the oyster bars.
Vero Beach has some amazing fishing spots for kayak fishermen. There are grass flats, oyster bars, tidal creeks, docks and bridges that hold tons of fish.
Vero Beach is one of those spots that has managed to remain somewhat healthy in spite of the toxic algae blooms and sea grass die offs that have occurred along the Treasure Coast in recent years.
I am a kayak fishing guide on the Treasure Coast of Florida. My charters run from Vero Beach down to Stuart and everywhere in between.
I have been fishing the grass flats and mangrove islands all over Florida for more than 40 years. In the article below, I will teach you just about everything that I know about kayak fishing in and around Vero Beach.
Let's get started.
Watch the video below and catch more tarpon.
Vero Beach Kayak Fishing Tarpon
I consider myself a tarpon specialist. They are my favorite fish to catch when they come rolling through Vero Beach in decent numbers from May through December. The hot Summer months are the best ones (July-September).
Tarpon have a lung like organ that allows them to breathe air from the atmosphere instead of oxygen that is dissolved in the water. This gives them a huge advantage when it is super hot and the water lacks oxygen. Hot water cannot hold dissolved oxygen as well as cold water can.
It helps us tarpon addicts find them as they surface to gulp air. Tarpon move around a lot so you might have to follow them around the flats as they move in search of prey items. Tarpon like to hunt the flats that are near deeper channels. If you can find deeper channels near mangroves, grass flats, spoil islands, docks, bridges..... then you have a good chance to find tarpon.
Mangroves- I like to find mangroves that are adjacent to deeper cuts and channels. This is a great place to find feeding tarpon. I like to use live bait to catch tarpon. They like finger mullet, white baits (sardines, herring, menhaden, sand perch...) The big tarpon like ladyfish, big pin fish and bigger mullet.
The best way to fish with live bait is to put them under a cork. The cork allows you to track your live bait more effectively. It also allows the tarpon to have a better chance of catching the bait. It slows the bait down and you will get more hook ups with a cork. Use about 3 feet of leader under your cork.
I wrote another article on this website that covers in great detail how to catch a tarpon. You can read that article by clicking right here.
Any closer to the cork will often keep the fish from hitting the bait. It is better to err on the side of too long instead of too short.
The best lures for tarpon are a walk-the-dog type of top water lure at first light. I like the Zara Super Spook and the MirroLure Top Dog the best. White and natural color combinations are my favorites.
Another great hard plastic lure is the MirroLure Suspending Mullet. This bait looks just like a mullet and suspends in the water a foot or so beneath the surface. Use a natural color combination for best results.
Another great lure is a DOA Bait Buster mullet and DOA CAL 3 inch shad. My favorite color bait buster is natural combinations like a white body with a dark back. The best DOA CAL colors are white and glow with a red jig head.
Inlets- The Fort Pierce Inlet is another good tarpon spot. Those tarpon are the big ones so be ready with some beefed up tackle. Inlets are hard to fish from a kayak because of the big boats and their wakes and the heavy current that you will have to deal with.
BUT if you can figure it out you will catch a huge tarpon early in the morning and at sunset. At night time the tarpon are much more aggressive and there is less boat traffic around the inlet.
Vero Beach Kayak Fishing Redfish
Mangroves- Redfish are another fun fish to catch from a kayak. Most of my success with redfish is during the higher parts of the tide under the mangrove roots. The key to this kind of fishing is to get your bait or lure within a foot or so of the roots.
The reds like to cruise in and out of the mangrove roots looking for crabs, shrimp and small fish to eat. They hug those roots as they look for food. That means that you need to hug those roots too.
The best bait is a finger mullet, shrimp, or live bait. Use a float to control your bait and keep it from getting wrapped up in roots.
The best lure for mangrove reds is a Berkeley GULP shrimp or swimming mullet with a 1/8 ounce red jig head.
Docks- Docks are another great place to find Vero Beach redfish. Docks will hold redfish, snook, black drum, flounder, mangrove snapper, sheepshead...….. and many more species.
My favorite bait for redfish around docks is a live shrimp with just enough weight to keep it on the bottom. You might have to fish a couple of dozen docks to find the fish. Some docks just have the fish and some do not.
I wrote another article on this website that covers how to catch a redfish in much more detail. You can read that article by clicking right here.
The best lure for dock reds is again a Berkeley GULP shrimp or swimming mullet with a 1/8 ounce jig head. Use a 1/4 ounce jig if the current won't allow you to bounce your jig off of the bottom.
Watch the video below and catch more spotted sea trout.
Mangroves- Redfish are another fun fish to catch from a kayak. Most of my success with redfish is during the higher parts of the tide under the mangrove roots. The key to this kind of fishing is to get your bait or lure within a foot or so of the roots.
The reds like to cruise in and out of the mangrove roots looking for crabs, shrimp and small fish to eat. They hug those roots as they look for food. That means that you need to hug those roots too.
The best bait is a finger mullet, shrimp, or live bait. Use a float to control your bait and keep it from getting wrapped up in roots.
The best lure for mangrove reds is a Berkeley GULP shrimp or swimming mullet with a 1/8 ounce red jig head.
Docks- Docks are another great place to find Vero Beach redfish. Docks will hold redfish, snook, black drum, flounder, mangrove snapper, sheepshead...….. and many more species.
My favorite bait for redfish around docks is a live shrimp with just enough weight to keep it on the bottom. You might have to fish a couple of dozen docks to find the fish. Some docks just have the fish and some do not.
I wrote another article on this website that covers how to catch a redfish in much more detail. You can read that article by clicking right here.
The best lure for dock reds is again a Berkeley GULP shrimp or swimming mullet with a 1/8 ounce jig head. Use a 1/4 ounce jig if the current won't allow you to bounce your jig off of the bottom.
Watch the video below and catch more spotted sea trout.
Vero Beach Kayak Fishing Spotted Sea Trout
Sea trout and grass flats go together like beer and chicken wings; Saturdays and college football; peanut butter and jelly...…. You get the point. You won't catch many sea trout if there are no grass flats in the area.
Sea trout numbers have dropped dramatically over the last few years. There have been water quality issues and huge sea grass die offs in the Vero Beach area. BUT sea trout are resilient and so is the sea grass if everyone takes care of them.
The sea grass needs a very specific amount of freshwater to survive. It can't have too much salinity or too little salinity or it will die. In recent years, our area has gotten too much freshwater because of the huge releases of water from Lake Okeechobee. That has been the biggest problem in our area and has caused massive sea grass die offs.
I wrote another article on this website that covers in more detail how to catch a spotted sea trout. You can read that article by clicking right here.
The best baits for sea trout is a white bait of some kind or a live shrimp under a popping cork. The key to catching sea trout is finding the correct water depth where they are hanging out. It is usually somewhere between 3 and 5 feet of water on the grass flats unless it is Winter. In the Winter months they will be in the deeper channels.
The best lures are white Berkeley GULP shrimp and swimming mullet or a white DOA CAL 3 inch swimming shad with a red 1/8 ounce jig head.
You can fish this lure slowly with a twitch, twitch, pause, reel type of retrieve and catch tons of speckled trout if you can find the schools. The key to fishing the flats is to cover a lot of water until you figure out where all of the feeding fish are.
Once you find them, focus your efforts on that area until the bite shuts down or the fish move away.
Watch the video below and catch more snook with soft plastic lures.
WANT TO CATCH A TROPHY SNOOK, REDFISH, TARPON OR TROUT? Give us a call and BOOK YOUR KAYAK FISHING CHARTER TODAY!
Vero Beach Kayak Fishing Snook
Snook baby, snook baby one, two, three.... Is that a song? You probably just stopped reading this article right then but keep reading there is more good fishing information to be had.
Snook are great fish to catch and Vero Beach has tons of them. I catch most of mine around docks or in the mangrove roots at higher tides. Snook are usually structure oriented but they do like to stalk the grass flats too.
Docks- Docks are great places to find snook. My favorite baits are finger mullet and white baits under a cork. You can cast up current to them or position your kayak up current and let your bait come to them with the tide for a more stealthy presentation.
The lure that I use most often when fishing docks for snook is the white DOA CAL 3 inch swimming shad. I am not sponsored by DOA Lures. They don't give me free ones even though I'll take some free ones if anyone over at DOA reads this article. I just like them because they are cheap and they catch all kinds of different species of fish along the Treasure Coast of Florida.
I wrote another article on this website that covers snook fishing in great detail. You can learn how to catch a snook by clicking right here.
The best techniques is to bounce this lure off of the bottom under the docks or steady swim the lure within a foot or so of the bottom. Both of those techniques work really well for hungry snook. This is especially true during the early morning hours and right before sunset.
You can also fish the docks with lights at night with this lure. Snook are much more aggressive at night. This is also the best time to catch your personal best snook. The big girls like to eat at night. They like to hang out just outside the light shine in the shadows. Make sure that you cast way past the shine and work your bait or lure into the light.
Bridges- Bridges are another great place to catch Vero Beach snook. Any bridge can be a good snook bridge as long as there is moving water and bait in the area. The big snook will be near the bottom and will be facing into the current.
This means that your presentation should come from up current. When I fish bridges there are only a couple of deep water snook lures that I use. I like a flair hawk style jig and a DOA Big Eyz. Let's talk about the flair hawk jig first.
You will want to use white if the water is clear and chartreuse or pink if the water is murky. A 1 1/2 ounce jig is your best all around weight if there are normal tides. You will want to increase that weight if the tides are heavy. Use just enough weight to keep the lure on or near the bottom.
The flair hawk snook jig is your best bet for deep water snook. If you get good at using them, then you will be the snook slayer king of all of the Vero Beach area bridges and the Fort Pierce and Sebastian Inlets.
The best technique for fishing a flair hawk jig is to cast it up current and bounce it along the bottom at about the same speed as the current is moving. Another technique is to swim the lure within a foot or so of the bottom at about the same speed as the current movement. That's it.
I would suggest using a medium/heavy rod; a 4000 to 5000 series reel and a strong braided line to help you feel the strike and get a big snook out of the underwater structure before it can wrap your line. I would use 30 to 50 lbs. of line strength for big bridge and inlet snook.
Another great lure for deep water snook is the DOA Big One Terror Eyz lure. You will want to use the white or glow for clear water conditions. Use the chartreuse or root beer for dirty water conditions. You will fish this lure EXACTLY the same way that you fish the flair hawk jig.
The soft plastic of this lure makes the snook hold onto it a little longer before spitting it out. This gives you a little longer to figure out that a snook just hit your lure so that you can set the hook.
Watch the video below and catch more flounder.
Vero Beach Kayak Fishing Flounder
Do you want to be a Vero Beach Flounder Pounder? Vero Beach gets lots of decent sized flounder coming into the inlets on either side of it. The Sebastian Inlet is known for its huge flounder and the Fort Pierce Inlet is probably a close second in the state of Florida.
The flounder come into the inlets from offshore and disperse all along the Indian River Lagoon. They will be around the docks, grass flats, oyster bars, tidal creeks and just about everywhere else too.
I wrote another article on this website that covers in much more detail how to catch a flounder. You can read that article by clicking right here.
There is no need to use live bait for catching flounder. The Berkeley GULP Shrimp and the Swimming Mullet are the only baits that you will need to catch a lot of flounder regardless of where you are fishing. If you master either one of those lures, then you will be an official flounder pounder. I guarantee it.
The key to flounder fishing is patience on your retrieve. You will want to retrieve your lure 4 or 5 times more slowly than you normally would with other fish.
EXAMPLE: Cast the lure; Let it sink to the bottom; bounce, reel, bounce, reel, then pause for 10 seconds; repeat. It should take you a couple of minutes to cast and retrieve your lure each time.
These fish will follow your bait for a long way but they will not use a huge burst of speed for a long distance catch it. Fish for flounder veeeerrrrrrryyyyyy sllllllloooooowwwwwwlllllly and you will catch a ton of them.
Conclusion:
Kayak fishing in and around Vero Beach is still amazing. There are grass flats for snook, trout, redfish, flounder, black drum; There are docks for redfish, sheepshead, mangrove snapper, snook, flounder; There are bridges for big snook; The Sebastian Inlet and the Fort Pierce Inlet has HUGE tarpon and snook. The point is that there is good fishing just about anywhere that you go on your kayak.
My favorite thing about being a kayak fishermen is being able to fish anywhere that I want to. There are lots of good places where you can launch your kayak and get on some fish.
With just a few different lures and baits you can catch just about any fish that swims in these waters. I hope that this article helps you catch a lot more fish or at the very least let's you have a lot more fun trying.
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Kayak fishing in and around Vero Beach is still amazing. There are grass flats for snook, trout, redfish, flounder, black drum; There are docks for redfish, sheepshead, mangrove snapper, snook, flounder; There are bridges for big snook; The Sebastian Inlet and the Fort Pierce Inlet has HUGE tarpon and snook. The point is that there is good fishing just about anywhere that you go on your kayak.
My favorite thing about being a kayak fishermen is being able to fish anywhere that I want to. There are lots of good places where you can launch your kayak and get on some fish.
With just a few different lures and baits you can catch just about any fish that swims in these waters. I hope that this article helps you catch a lot more fish or at the very least let's you have a lot more fun trying.
Do you like how to fishing articles like this one? If you answered yes, then sign up for our email list because we will send you a new article to read every week. Sign up now and get your first one today.