Shore Thing Fishing Report, 3/20/2024

March 20, 2024

The trick to finding fish this week is to keep moving and use the right bait for the conditions.

- by Sonny Schindler, Shore Thing Fishing Charters

A nice speckled trout for a happy young man, caught near Pass Christian.

We had the majority of our boats running most of the week. We covered a lot of ground and had a lot of fun. Our boats fished as far west as the Pearl River, with many of our boats fishing in close from Heron Bay to Pass Christian in Mississippi waters during a few of the calmer days. Several of our boats ran down to the Biloxi Marsh. I think we even had a boat or two make it all the way down to the Chandeleur Islands.
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Dr. Chelsea Grow with a redfish she caught and released near Bayou Caddy.

 
The common theme on every boat and every trip was finding calm and clean water. With this last batch of big rain, some days you found good water early, some days you found it later, and some days you never found it. Obviously, the best water is down south right now. You just have to wait for calmer days to make the run.
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Jimbo and Brittany Moss from Jackson, Miss., with a red and black drum caught near Bay St Louis.

 
Close to shore, if you are stuck in dirty water, live or dead shrimp makes a huge difference. Honestly, I think nothing beats fresh dead shrimp right now in the dirty water. We are seeing a pile of red fish in close, but there are gobs of rat reds along the marsh shorelines and nearshore reefs.
 

A hefty sheepshead caught near Cat Island for this spring breaker.

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It seems the biggest concentration of those huge sheepsheads are a little further south right now, probably because of the warm weather we had and lower salinity in close. The puppy drum and huge black drum are definitely around, unfazed by the rain and lower salinities. 
 
Down south in the marsh, some of our boats are picking up decent numbers of speckled trout, but they are having to move all day to put a good box of fish together. It’s March, the temperatures, salinity, and fish are all over the place. Keep moving until you find the fish, be safe, and have some fun.

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