Break wall attract bait and gamefish, and can provide angler access.
An inlet may have a deep channel that holds the lion’s share of fish under some conditions. Most inlet channels are marked on charts. Fish use channels as highways, and move about with tide flow to feed. Prime fishing spots include “stair-step” ledges, underwater points, rock clusters and sunken boats. Up top, check out pilings, piers, docks, channel markers, creekmouths, oyster bars and sand spits. If you are scoping out an inlet, be sure to fish these spots at various tide stages to look for feeding patterns. And don’t overlook those inlet channel markers, whether inside or well outside the mouth. Depending on inlet location, markers attract baitfish, which in turn draw cobia and tripletail, as well as bluefish, striped bass, snook, barracuda, Spanish mackerel and jacks. Closer to bottom, you might hook small snapper, croakers, whiting, sheepshead and more.
Jetties are the most visible of inlet structure, and perhaps the fishiest. Virtually all inlet species can be found around jetties at varying times of year. One of the best fishing places along a jetty is where rocks fall off into a deep hole or bottom depression. The very tips of jetties or concrete “break walls” are highly productive ambush spots for predators, particularly at dawn and dusk, so often the first boat on the scene scores the biggest and most fish. But jetty points can produce throughout the day, too, particularly when bait schools enter or exit the inlet. Keep in mind that there’s often more jetty than “meets the eye.” Submerged jetty rocks can extend quite a distance from the visible structure. Bottom fishermen should take a hint from this. Also, gouged-out breaks in the rocks funnel both water and bait, setting up a great feeding station, especially for bluefish, stripers, jacks, seatrout, snook and others. Usually the downcurrent side of a jetty hole is best.
Large inlets with long jetties that extend far from their mouth serve as a natural fish trap for migrating bait that would otherwise stay well off the beach. The effect intensifies during spring and fall migrations. During spring along the Atlantic coast, bait typically moves from south to north just offshore of the beach breakers. A long jetty interferes with this, causing bait to jam up along the south side of southernmost jetties. The rest you can figure out. Most gamefish certainly do. This bait-jamming phenomenon is so common at some inlets that veteran anglers target such spots at first light.
The most obvious inlet hotspots are bridges, bulkheads, piers and docks, all top spots that even the novice can fish with success. Surface feeders flock to such structure because tide current funnels baitfish and shrimp through, often forming eddies that hold and concentrate the food. If these structures are lighted at night, so much the better for the nocturnal angler out for snook, tarpon and stripers. These structures also attract barnacles, crabs and other bottom forage that appeal to bottom fish such as sheepshead, snapper, flounder and others. Small minnows are frequently found en masse around boat docks where there are fish-cleaning tables. Similarly, commercial fishing boat docks often hold huge schools of baitfish, as the byproduct “trash” caught in commercial nets that’s dumped overboard serves as baitfish forage. Scallop and crab processing plants frequently have outflow pipes where shellfish are “washed.” They can be inlet fishing spots of the first order, since they act like a massive chumslick.
Get the Timing Right
Most inlets are seasonally productive for various species. An inlet, or particular portion of an inlet, may only hold snook or stripers, for example, a couple months a year. And then they may only bite on a particular tide stage. But your first concern should be whether they are there at all.
So when fishing those inlet hotspots that you have uncovered, don’t become disgruntled just because they don’t give up fish each and every time out. Don’t write it off until you have fished during all seasons of the year, during all tide phases, and for all species of fish that frequent that inlet.
Southern inlets, particularly those in Florida, may be void of pelagics such as bluefish and Spanish mackerel all summer, only to be inundated with those toothy roamers once the baitfish migration gets under way in early fall. A top summer snook or tarpon inlet may be the worst place of all to find those species in the dead of winter, and so on. To be sure, inlet fishing is as cyclic as can be.
Tidelines or “rips” are color changes where clean, ocean water meets outflow from inland waters, whether a river or bay. And, they are top-shelf feeding spots for many inlet species. Some rips are easy to spot, others aren’t. Wherever you find a tideline, whether inside or well outside an inlet, give it your undivided attention. Tidelines often gather loads of debris, weeds and small crabs, shrimp and baitfish at the surface. When this occurs in northern inlets, stripers, blues and mackerel often make raids. From the Mid-Atlantic coast to Florida, a cast of characters including tarpon, snook, permit, redfish, jack crevalle, mackerel, blues and others will feast on the food line. When a distinct color change is not evident, you’ll likely spot choppy water abutting calmer water.
Strong wind whipping around a jetty or bridge piling can also create a current edge, and this subtle rip can hold snook, red drum, bluefish, tarpon or striped bass. A powerplant discharge can also attract inlet fish, and sometimes from quite a long distance. In cold weather all manner of fish—from seatrout and jacks to tarpon and sharks—can be found feasting on forage that also gathers in the comparatively warm power plant water. SWA
