Port Canaveral, Cape Canaveral, Cocoa Beach, and Orlando

Last Month’s Action
July was most certainly a grind for most of the month. Live bait/ slow trolling is the only game in town during the heat of the summer. The king fish cooperated for the most part but most days it was just a fish here and one there. Like always with live bait trolling, we did catch several cobia, mahi, blackfin tuna and sail fish in the mix. Shark fishing was good for the medium to small black tip, hammerhead and blacknose sharks so that was great fun for families with kids looking to do something outside of the theme park box. The 3 day red snapper season was a absolute joke like usual but the lucky customers that were able to secure the dates limited out with decent size fish pretty easy. Other than the red snapper the bottom fishing was horrid, and it usually is July and August so no real surprise. The few tuna trips we were able to do were on point with good quantity of fish and a few yellowfins pushing the 80lb mark.

August Near Shore Fishing Forecast
The beach is the place to be for action packed mornings or late afternoons. If our pogys stick around, we can have great fun live bait trolling right in or just outside the bait for a variety of fun fights such as tarpon, king mackerel, jack crevalle, bonito, hammerhead sharks and spinner sharks to name a few. Live bait trolling and shark fishing is where its at nearshore and pretty much anything else is just not going to result in a lot of action.

August Offshore Fishing Forecast
It is summertime grind still so plan on fishing for all the right reasons. Your priority when heading out for a day of deep-sea fishing should always be but absolutely must be this time of year about enjoying time on the water and spending time with family and friends. The only game in town is live bait trolling and the primary target is king mackerel. If you are one of those people who don’t like mackerel because you didn’t know how to properly prepare it, or someone told you that they aren’t any good then you really don’t need to be fishing this time of year. Do yourself a favor and take some fresh to the Grills Restaurant and let them prepare it for you and you will instantly change your mind about king mackerel. You just can’t freeze it! I am all bout fishing for anything and everything but if you show up in July or August and don’t want to king fish there is literally nothing else to do except for deep drop fishing or tuna fishing and those are very specific trips that must be booked/planned ahead of time. I can’t tell you how many times we have customers show up and don’t want to king fish or we start off live bait trolling and the first 3 or 4 fish are king fish and they want to go bottom fishing and end up with nothing else. Then at the end of the day we get back to the dock and they say that boat caught a couple cobia and a mahi. Yes it did and do you see the 12 king mackerel he has also? That’s because he slow trolled aka king fished all day!!!!!Point I am making is that summertime fishing out of Port Canaveral is ALL about the slow trolling.

Other side Tuna trip were phenomenal through late September last year and we can expect the same this year. A early start with more time having baits in the water creates opportunity that turns into big fish.

Deep dropping for golden tile fish and yellow edge grouper is a great option for those that want to put some bottom species in the boat. The key to deep dropping is not to get discouraged if you go hours with no results. Stick and move and keep trying different depths because once you find them it usually comes together quick.

The Suzuki Repower Fishing Report is sponsored by Mastry Suzuki Repower

Captain Greg Rapp
Sealeveler Sport Fishing Charters
Phone: (321) 794-3474
Capt. Greg on the web: https://www.sealeveler.com/
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About Captain Greg’s Reports and Forecast
Captain Greg has been fishing the waters of Port Canaveral and the Atlantic for over 30 years. He has the largest and most highly rated private charter business in Port Canaveral, Sea Leveler Sport Fishing Charters. Greg and his team of full time captains fish well over 200 days each per year. We have kept detailed catch history for every trip ran since 2010. You can access this history at www.sealeveler.com/reports. His engineer wife, Amber, has analyzed the catch history along with other historical data such as water temperature and weather patterns. Greg uses his fishing experience and knowledge along with his wife’s statistical analysis to bring you the best fishing report available for Port Canaveral. Greg will give you the honest truth on how the fishing has been along with his best prediction of what to expect by using all of this information.