Saturday Fishiing Philippe Park

It was a windy afternoon (4:30pm), there was a minor front moving in and it was suppose to bring rain Sunday so the winds were up a little over 15knts. They were out of the southwest and we thought that Philippe Park (Map Link) might be a good protected area. As you can see from the picture the waves were a little large for Kayaks, But they weren't bad enough to keep us off the water and the water was very warm.

It looked a little nicer from shore than it actually was. We launched right from one of the pull overs towards the south end of the park. and fished from creek mouth south about 200-300 yards. The mangroves were nicely covered with water.

Tim caught the first fish of the day a nice 18" Redfish. The water was pushed way up and we hit the place right at high tide and the mangroves were in the water and the treeline was flooded. With the murky water conditions we though that it might be best to use White Soft Jigs. I used a New Penny color and Tim was using solid white.

We caught a few more fish a couple of trout and some Ladyfish and as you can see Tim's catches of Redfish were right up in the Mangrove shallows. the water was about 2ft deep here and is normally less than 6 inches.
The wind isn't always your enemy as a matter of fact a nice South wind is a great thing in the upper Tampa Bay area where the water can be pushed into places that it normally isn't and the fish are there too.