Above: Finger mullet is a great bait for redfish, tarpon and snook; tail-hooked, it will tend to swim away from you. Left: Pinfish nose-hooked for freeline or cork duty. Below: Killifish, or mud minnow, is perhaps best-known as a flounder bait—but attracts all kinds of fish. (Joe Richard photos)
July 24, 2024
By Joe Richard
Florida is blessed with many species of inshore baitfish, thanks to a 1,300-mile coastline spanning different latitudes from tropical to, well, less tropical. Let’s take a look at what are certainly the Big Three.
Mullet Small “finger mullet” are tasty snacks for trout, snook, redfish, and flounder. For such a prolific species, mullet are fragile. They freeze well, but keeping them alive more than 24 hours is nearly impossible. If you want shiny (somewhat) happy mullet, a castnet is mandatory. Practice on backyard targets. In Florida, I depend on quiet beaches, where mullet can be seen over clean bottom.
Spotting them in dark water is difficult, and veterans learn to recognize even the most subtle ripples of mullet water. On flat-calm days they might be feeding on a thin film of phytoplankton at the surface, showing the tops of their heads. Generally, they’re shy in clear water. Born wary of castnet shadows in the sky, Florida’s mullet are worth pursuing because they’re such great natural baits.
Pinfish A sturdy little member of the porgy family, these can be caught on No. 16 “hair hooks” over shallow grass bottoms or even dockside, much like freshwater bream fishing. They’re greedy and will also pack into pinfish traps that, when baited properly and soaked overnight, can yield 50 or more of these prickly fish. Use scissors and trim their long dorsal fin, and they’re much easier to handle. Predator fish appreciate the gesture as well.
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“Pinnies” are found on the entire Gulf Coast in warm weather. In the Big Bend area, they are the go-to bait and marinas sell thousands. Attach one under a cork, and it’s fun for the whole family. Often, 20-plus inch trout are caught by novice anglers.
In the Middle Keys, I’ve fished with guys who set out three or four pinfish traps for 24 hours, baiting each with a 5-pound block of fish chum. Soaked in 8 feet of water on the Gulf side of the highway, each trap came up thrashing with pinnies. We then fished wrecks on the Gulf side for cobia, and then ran under the bridge to the Atlantic side, dropping live pinnies down 30 fathoms. Up came a half dozen mutton snapper, a 21-pound gag, and a 31-pound black grouper on the same day. All caught with trap-caught pinfish.
Down in Key West, using rod and reel, we used to catch pinnies in the Stock Island Channel around the mangroves. We’d head out in our little boat up the Northwest Channel and use pinfish at night for mangrove snapper. Back then, funds were tight and catching our own pinfish was more affordable than buying frozen bait. If we’d only known about pinfish traps.
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Killifish There are two main species of these sturdy little “marsh minnows” or “mud minnows.” The more colorful, spotted one is the Gulf killifish, found in marsh creeks and muddy roadside ditches, earning its generic name. While throwing a castnet, if I caught a blue crab, I’d pull off the shell and toss the crab out in a foot of water. Marsh minnows would gather and feed on the crab, easy targets for the net.
That same Gulf species is adapted to low oxygen environments; I once tossed a few in a coffee can during summer and hauled them offshore. Out in clear water I enticed two reticent cobia into chasing and inhaling marsh minnows; it seems a hard-wiggling, tiny fish really turns on cobia, compared with dead bait. One of the cobes weighed 40 pounds, making a strong case for always carrying live bait of some sort. Unlike mullet, tough marsh minnows easily adapt to marina bait pens where they’re sold to fishermen. They do well in bait buckets, let alone a modern livewell.
I fished with a Big Bend guide who soaked his own marsh minnow traps overnight in murky tidal creeks, and next day carried a plentiful supply in his boat’s livewell. His clients threw corks and live minnows around the oyster reefs and caught lots of trout and redfish.
The other “marsh minnow,” the longnose killifish, inhabits sandy beaches and islands with clean water. Like their colorful brothers from the marsh, the striped longnose is rather slow, easy targets in shallow water with a castnet, not nearly as wary as mullet. Using them up to a maximum 5 inches or so, we’ve hammered redfish and snook around Cedar Key. Said to be found along the Atlantic Coast and the entire Gulf Coast down to Tampico, Mexico. While not as flashy as finger mullet, they are far more durable and get the job done.
This article was featured in the June 2024 issue of Florida Sportsman magazine. Click to subscribe .
