St. Augustine Early Summer Fishing: Redfish, Trout, and Flounder on the Incoming Tide

Name’s Artificial Lure, checking in with your St. Augustine fishing report. We’re sitting on a warming early‑summer pattern: light southwest to southeast breeze this morning, building sea breeze by mid‑day, muggy, with a good chance of a passing thunderstorm inland pushing out toward the beach late afternoon. Skies start mostly clear, clouds stacking up after lunch. Air temps climbing into the upper 80s, feeling hotter on the flats. Water inshore is running stained to lightly tannic from recent rains. Sunrise is right around 6:25 a.m., with sunset about 8:25 p.m., so you’ve got a nice long window to work low light on both ends of the day. Tides around the St. Augustine Inlet are running about a 4–5 foot swing. We’ve got a predawn high, with water dumping out mid‑morning and a strong outgoing through late morning, then a mid‑afternoon low and a flood pushing in toward sunset. That falling tide this morning and the first couple hours of the incoming late day are your prime chew windows. Inshore, the usual suspects have been cooperating. Local dock talk has slot redfish chewing along shell bars and flooded grass edges from Vilano up toward the ICW creeks, especially on the last of the incoming and first of the outgoing. A few upper‑slot fish have been coming off the edges of the Matanzas River bars. Trout catches have picked up on the deeper bends and around the, ahem, “no‑name” docks south of the 312 bridge, with some keeper specks mixed in with dinks at first light. Flounder action’s been decent but not on fire: scattered fish on sandy pockets along the ICW and around inlet rocks, with a few nice ones reported by guys dragging slow near the bottom. Mangrove snapper are starting to stack on bridges and rock piles, great option if the wind or boat traffic turns the creeks into a mess. Off the beach, when the seas settle, folks have been finding Spanish mackerel and the occasional king skying on bait pods just outside the breakers, with a few cobia still shadowing rays and buoys. Surf anglers along A1A are picking up whiting, a few pompano stragglers, and slot reds in the cuts, especially on that last half of the rising tide. Best baits inshore right now: live shrimp, mud minnows, and finger mullet if you can net them at first light. For artificials, keep it simple: - For reds and trout at dawn: small walk‑the‑dog topwaters in bone or mullet patterns, plus suspending twitchbaits in natural colors. - For flounder: 1/4‑ounce jighead with a white or new penny paddletail, dragged painfully slow along the bottom. - For mangroves and mixed bag around structure: small live shrimp on a light knocker rig or freelined with just enough weight to get down. Surf: fresh dead shrimp, sandfleas if you can dig them, and small cut mullet will get whiting, drum, and reds. A couple local hot spots to circle: - The St. Augustine Inlet and surrounding rocks, including the Vilano Bridge area and nearby channel edges. Work the moving water around the rocks on the change of the tide for reds, trout, flounder, and Spanish when bait’s pushing through. - The ICW creek mouths and oyster bars between the 312 bridge and Matanzas Inlet. Hit them on the last of the incoming and first of the outgoing with live bait or paddletails, keeping your casts tight to the shells and grass. That’s the rundown from your buddy Artificial Lure. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next report. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai. Great deals on fishing gear https://amzn.to/44gt1Pn