Jacksonville may be Florida’s most populated city, and the third most populated on the entire U.S. Eastern Seaboard, but all those people haven’t crowded out equally sizeable populations of big trout, reds and flounder in waterways within city limits and right nearby. Those gamefish move and feed in the sprawling St. Johns riverine system of bays, spartina marshes, creeks and estuaries as it heaves and falls with some of the highest tides in the state, with up to six feet of surge. The combination of big tides and urban and residential structure, such as docks, oyster-encrusted bridge pilings, seawalls, piers, riprap rock, and the region’s natural features like grassbeds, marsh and steep river banks, makes a fishery

In a day’s fishing, motivated local anglers may make up to 500 casts, and more, searching all that intricate structure where fish find cover and food. For their ease of casting, durability, and success at all levels of that deep water column, artificial baits, both hard and soft, lead the list of favored local terminal tackle. The baits put casting skills at a premium, but just as essential is knowledge of how to work, turn and crank those artificials.

“We work docks, canal outflows, creekmouths, seawalls, riprap rock, and the more industrial structure like shipping docks, some of which are so high off the water we can sneak our boats in under them at low tides and catch fish,” says local Capt. Roger Bump. “Basically, anywhere around here there is structure, there will be fish. I’ve seen artificials work to get strikes from the surface on down to 10 feet deep, so they’re the perfect lure for our fishery here.”

To stand on the bow of a skiff working the point of a grassflat in the early morning and catch sight of a trout swirl or a redfish fin 60 feet to the east in the faint light, and to know that you have one cast to get your lure in its path, and only a few seconds, makes the morning. To shoot with an archer’s accuracy, hit the mark and work that lure properly to finesse a strike makes the day.

Year-round, you can find sizeable trout from the end of Ortega down to Green Cove Springs, the Doctor’s Lake area and the Shands Bridge area south of Jacksonville, all caught off deep structure. Also good are the river stretch near downtown Jacksonville, the Arlington area of the river and Godby’s Creek and the St. Carlos Creek power plant’s walls and outflow area. In the winter, the trout feed on shrimp that hang out in the estuary. Mill Cove, a large bay of water off the St. Johns, always makes a great fishing location, where the big trout spawn in the spring, and other trout feed year round. It’s shallow, three to four feet of water, directly affected by tidal flows. It’s a mostly sand and mud bottom, so you don’t want to go out and wade in it.

Spring and early summer are the best times to get trout over 7 pounds, especially as close to the full moon as possible for its big tides and moving waters washing all the baits around. The large trout are females, on their own, and in April and May, they feed on smaller pogies and minnows that move into the river.

“I like clear water for trout,” Bump says. “I always look at my trolling motor. If I can see the bottom of my trolling motor, I consider it clear. If it’s too cloudy, I’ll leave the spot. The wind and tide affect the clarity, and there’s always clear water somewhere.

“In the spring,” says Bump, “if you want a trophy, hit as many holes as you can. The big fish seem to come right out and take a lure right away, and if you don’t get hooked up quickly, you might as well move on. As a trout fisherman, I’m real careful. I release all those big trout. I consider it a blessing when I get one.”

Day in, day out, topwater lures provoke the larger trout. Conventional wisdom says that fish mainly hit topwaters at first light and tend to get a lot warier in the direct sunlight. While that’s a good general rule, and it’s true that those big trout do tend to hunt down deeper as the day wears on, remember that on cloudy days, you can keep using topwater lures.

“Way up the river,” Bump says, “those black bass love to hit a topwater too. Trout go all the way up the river to Palatka, too.

“We especially like that early a.m. high tide to throw the topwaters. That’s when the trout get up on those flats to feed on the mullet that crowd there,” Bump says. “Especially when the winds are down, we’re able to throw the topwaters, and then when the winds come up a bit, we’ll go to subsurface and sinking lures. When it’s really windy, we’ll seek the lee of islands and go with twitch baits with a higher frequency noisemaker that sounds like a tin can rattling and definitely gets their attention.”

Redfish will hit topwaters all day long, and you can definitely fish for them in cloudier water than you’d want for trout. Around Jacksonville, reds school up in the spring and the fall. The big reds, 30-pounders plus, come up into the river in October and people fish for them with pogies and cracked crabs. The big reds also hang out at the beaches and feast on pogies in the spring too.

From Jacksonville all the way down to Green Cove Springs, all through the summer, people fish for reds with lures, jigs and live bait along old, broken-down docks on the St. Johns.

“The key to that game,” says longtime Jacksonville angler Pat Stinson, “is to look for deep water near the end of the dock, water that’s four to six feet, for reds. If it’s not that deep, don’t waste your time.”

Also look for reds on the West and East Chicopit flats. On really big flood tides, the redfish will come in over the flooded grassflats and feed on the fiddler crabs. Reds also hide in the sand holes and trails in the flats of the Intracoastal, and you can see them tailing in there and check out their locations during the flood tide. Also look for them along the edges of the Intracoastal, says Stinson.

Clearly, redfish aren’t just scent feeders. They’re aggressive, and they’re zoning in on the sounds and action that the lures make. They hit the lures hard, as if they’re angry at them.

Flounder and mangrove snapper as well as blues, jacks, tarpon, Spanish macks and black bass also frequent inshore waters. Anglers get flounder in the bays in the spring and summer, and then in the fall, out in deeper water. Target them with spinnerbaits in the summer, and some use mud minnows and jigheads, too.

“Some of the old-timers will slow-troll with mud minnows along the creek areas on the low tide,” says Stinson, “when the flounder have fallen out of the smaller creeks into the narrow channel. The same happens with redfish. The falling tide brings them down into the deeper channels, where they wait out the tide change.”

You can also try sinking plugs that imitate the flounder’s favorite food, the finger mullet, right on the bottom. Cast, count down to about 5 or 6, feel it bump on the bottom and pick it up and retrieve it, giving it a sharp snap. The lure jumps and rolls and flashes, and the snap gives it the flash that fish like. The roll imitates a wounded bait. This bottom-bumping technique works for trout in Mill Cove and the Intracoastal as well. The lure gives a presentation to the bottom third of the water column.

These days, most inshore anglers have at least one or two rigs with braided line. For his part, Bump uses mono on his baitcasters and braided line on his spinning reels for distance casting. Those baitcasters take practiced thumb action to use properly, but the shorter baitcasting rods are good for close-quarter precision casting, and long-distance casting. A lot of anglers will say that baitcasters help them make the best casts under pressure, and the short rods impart better snap and swim to the lure on the retrieve. On the other hand, spinning reels give most people a good combination of accuracy and distance without the complexity of manipulating a baitcaster.

Bridges are very productive, especially around the pilings. On the deeper pilings, anglers like the last of the outgoing, and the first incoming tide. The trout are in there waiting to ambush the pogies and shrimp caught up in the swirling currents. You don’t have to worry about casting directly alongside the pilings every time. Just throw it upcurrent and let it sink for about a count of three. The sinking lures have a sink rate of one foot per second, and that puts it right in the prime strike zone, about four to seven feet deep, wherever that might be at that tide phase. Bring the lure down along the line of pilings, with the current for a natural presentation, and you’ll get strikes.

“Those subsurface lures like the MirrOlure S53, twitch ‘em hard,” Bump says. “These fish are very curious, like cats, and they’ll come out and tap the lure to see what it is. As long as you don’t hook him, the fish will keep coming back. If you hook and lose him, he’s gone. In this situation, suspending baits get you a lot better hook-up ratio than either topwaters or sinking lures with the following fish.”

You can also approach these bridges from the upstream side and throw upcurrent and quarter the tide with your cast. Let the sinking bait sweep back and as it approaches the bridge begin to retrieve. It appears to be a fast fleeing prey that pulls the trout out of their bridge lairs only a few feet away. It’s a very crafty technique and a good use of tide and structure and bait together.

These matters of baits and presentations beg the question, how exactly do fish see? We know that inshore fish have eyes that are extremely light-sensitive. Some species see colors, evidence suggests, and some may even see ultraviolet colors that we humans cannot. But all these species will certainly see colors as shades, and that may be why color definitely matters to anglers when it comes to topwater plugs. Sometimes the fish like a lighter color, sometimes a little darker.

“Usually, early in the morning,” Bump says, “I like light colors, red and white, chartreuse, and then I’ll try other colors later. If it’s an overcast day, I’ll go straightaway to a darker color and switch back and forth.”

Certainly flash stands out, and so does movement. That’s why how you impart action to that lure to make it life-like, with what part of your hand and arm, and what part of the rod, will make all the difference in your hook-up ratio. That’s also why it’s so important to tie the lures on with loop knots that let the lures swing and swim freely to do their magic.

Anglers say that the look and shape of the eyes matter on lures, but all those intricate markings like gill lines and scale patterns may be better at boosting angler-enthusiasm than enticing bites. But an angler’s confidence in a lure may be one of those intangibles that influences a day’s fishing. If the bite gets slow, trying another lure can give you a lift, and maybe a shot of adrenaline, at least enough to impart more accuracy to the cast again, and action to the retrieve. It’s funny the way an angler’s focus and emotion translate down the fishing line to the fish, but we’ve all seen it happen. When you believe something will work, it often does. F