UTER
How to catch Little tunny
Little tunny feed in 66–86°F water and bite best at 70–82°F. Fish Scouter's season calendar follows them in 21 waters; in October they are at their peak in The Panhandle, Tampa Bay & Sarasota, Charlotte Harbor & the Islands and 12 more.
About
The bonito: the striped, blitzing little tuna on the beaches and reefs, the fastest pull an inshore rod ever sees, and the bait for everything offshore. Not for the plate.
How to fish it
Find the blitz — birds, foam, tails — and cast a small jig past it and rip it. Light tackle, and a long first run.
What it eats
Live bait for it
Glass minnows (bay anchovies)Thrown by the handful as chum for Spanish, trout and ladyfish, or several on a tiny hook.
Pilchards (whitebait)Free-lined or under a cork, hooked through the nose on a #1 to 2/0 circle hook. The one bait that catches everything inshore.What to fish it with
the sizes that fish itThe rule
not confirmed hereNo size limit; general bag limit — confirm at MyFWC.
The current rule →Where it is, month by month
False albacore — little tunny — are the fall's speed demons. In the South Atlantic and the Gulf they're around most of the year on the reefs and passes, and they winter off south Florida in big schools. Every summer the Gulf Stream pushes them north, and August into October is the run that made them famous: Martha's Vineyard, Cape Cod, Rhode Island and Montauk, fish crashing bay anchovies and silversides on the surface. As the water cools they work south — Harkers Island and Cape Lookout, North Carolina, in October and November is the last great stand — before heading back to Florida for winter. Small epoxy jigs and a fast retrieve.