Pinfish for Bait

rebosraft

Going to Flamingo last week of April and renting a houseboat and was looking for info on dropping a pinfish trap.Will be anchoring up on west side of whitewater bay with access to gulf.Any pointers would be appreciated.

lemaymiami

Not many pins in the interior at all... If you do catch a few please let us know... If I were setting any pinfish traps I'd want to be on the edge of big grass flats where there's a noticeable current in about three or four feet of water (and all the flats on the Florida Bay side of Flamingo meet that description..).   Tons of pinfish (and pilchards) there...

Matter of fact whenever I have absolute beginners that's where we start our day, catching pins with a chum bag and bits of shrimp or squid on sabikis... then we run west around Cape Sable and fish them along to the coast up to and past the Shark then bring whatever's left into the interior as we make the big loop from one ramp (the outside) back to the other ramp (the inside or "freshwater" ramp).  If you do the big circle the shortest trip will have you clocking 55 miles - but we've never been able to do it with less than 70 miles on the trip log...

Because of the lack of pins in the interior we either use ladyfish (live or as cutbait) or pilchards and finger mullet when they're around... Pilchard season for us starts in mid-summer and lasts until November...

Hope this helps

rebosraft

Thank you Captain for your helpful information.Will be certain to let you know if we find any on the inside,
Tightlines 

Fishin' Musician

The Captain is right about the pins on the flats outside.