Beach Snook

The Snook have moved to the beaches. This 33incher was just hangin about 15ft from shore in strong moving outgoing tide. A Chartruese 1/2oz DOA Jig head and a White Gulp Shrimp brought him in. Just before sunrise off the north beach on Anclote Island. The offshore we did was good but no keeper grouper. However friends that went out hit the Kings about 10 miles out and Grouper on some of the deeper reefs.

FREE SALTWATER FISHING WEEKEND in FLORIDA

Residents and Visitors Fish for free in Saltwater this weekend.

"Florida is the fishing capital of the world," Crist declared, "and our beaches are clean, the fish are biting, and we invite our friends to enjoy some Florida hospitality."

So no reason to not bring the poles along with you this Memorial Day Weekend.

OH and when filling up your boats BOYCOTT BP.

Memorial Day Fishing

Although the water may be churned up a bit and there will be more than your usual number of boaters on the water the fish still need to eat. If you can find that calm area without the 15 yr olds on Jet Skis skimming around you like the dragonflies you should be good. If your headed off shore look for the bait and there will probably be Kings around. Trolling a #1 or #3 planer should get you to them. Reports of keeper grouper on many of the wrecks are coming in but the trick has been a small pinfish, not the huge hand sized ones but live bait in general seems to help find the keepers. Short Reds and Grunts seem to be the main staple without the live bait. Keep your freeline on top and maybe that stray King or Cobia will give you a thrill.  Boating this weekend may be a little extra special SO take care and watch for your fellow boater. Remember your Safety Gear. (16ft+, throwable, life vests for everyone, sound device like a whistle, fire extinguisher) for more info fisit the FWC site here
     If your headed offshore to fish you need the following. Venting Tool and Dehooking device, ALSO remember that when harvesting REEF FISH. All personnel Must use NON-Stainless Steel Circle Hooks when using natural baits.

Keep this in min this weekend and be safe.
Tight Lines!

Jawbreakerfishing.com - Offshore Charter - Capt. Dan Barry

JawbreakerFishing.com
Jawbreaker Fishing Report
I was lucky enough to find my way onto an offshore trip with Captain Dan Barry over this last weekend. I have to say that the trip worked out great but the fish didn't seem to cooperate. We are looking for the banannas still. We caught fish  and lots of them but most were undersized. However he had one of the most comfortable 34' Crusaders I have ever been on and his mate was very helpful and both were fun to hang out with. The day after we went out he was able to get to the fish and his report shows it. If your looking for a great offshore trip with a very accomodating captain and one that will chase the fish down and throw em in the boat for you if he needs to Capt. Dan is the guy you want to call. Check out his web site and when your ready for the private trip or that corporate outing Capt. Dan will make sure you find the fish!

Tampa fishing local report

Hit the water on Saturday to just see what was biting. drifted across flats just east of Anclote key. once we hit about 7 ft deep we started getting hits on jigheads with swim bodies and gulp shrimp. Spanish Mack, trout and even small black bass were hitting the baits. drifitng allowed us to cover a lot of area and get a good mix.

TampaBayFish - Who are you.

(Tim<-------->Trevor)

     This is my reintroduction. My name is Trevor. I am a normal everyday working individual and not a Professional Fishing Guide or Professional Fisherman. I started this web site to satisfy my need for Weather Links, Tracking where I caught Fish, posting pictures for my friends to find easily and other helpful information. It has kinda grown from there and I have added a few things.

      I wanted to post this so that people understand that this may not be the best fishing site out there but it is by far one of the most genuine. I don't exagerate my catches and if I don't catch anything well, thats just how it goes sometimes. Oh and I do catch Ladyfish and Catfish just like everyone else. I do own a boat, a 21 foot Trophy Pro,

(Up on the Trailer)

 so I am lucky in that regards because I can get to more fishing locations, I do have a lot of info on shore fishing so hopefully if other people have favorite locations from shore that can help to just drop me a line or a comment to my posts. One other thing is me and my buddy have Kayaks, 16'

(The Yaks)

with motors, which get us to the other places we fish. If you haven't looked into a Kayak for fishing here in Florida I highly recommend it. I saw a great fishing kayak setup yesterday at West Marine for $399 thats a pretty good deal. (No I'm not affiliated with West Marine) Also I am not a Florida Native BUT I did grow up fishing and have fished since I could put a worm on a hook.

      The one thing I did right was meet a great Florida Native Friend (Tim) who has shown me the ropes. He isn't the most computer Savvy But he can fish and regularly outfishes me. We try to fish once a week mostly weekends and evenings. We tend to target whatever hits our baits. We are big fans of Top water and light jig heads with a swim body. We love to catch Redfish and we typically catch a lot of Snook. We do go offshore out of Hubbards Marina on their 36hr trips and we take my boat out about 30-40 miles. (Single Engine so, yes I have an EPIRB).

(The Trop and TampaBayFish.com)

      I am a local to Tampa so maybe you'll see me around and I am a Sports team Homer so, GO BUCS!, RAYS!, LIGHTNING!, STORM!, ROWDIES! and any other local team. I especially love the Rays and have since I moved here. I Made it to the ONLY World Series Game We won SO FAR game #2. This year I will make it to more World Series Games.

      A few things that I can mention is that this web site only generates money from the Google ads on the side and I do not get paid any advertising fees for any of the other links on here. I would like to, but I'm not really into working that hard to sell my site as having the top google ranked site for Tampa. Since I do have just about every #1 position when searching for anything fishing related in Tampa. Here's my only plug for the site. Test it out! Search for "Tampa Fishing" or "Gandy Fishing" or "Tampa fishing information" and I am #1 and for just about any other search for fishing in the Tampa Bay are I am number one also.

     Anyway, I am always listening to the locals, and at the boat ramps and getting info that I think is good and passing it on through my site.

(Offshore with a Keeper Red)

     So the next time you come to my web site and think "This guy doesn't know what he's talking about" you may be right. BUT the way I see it its just like fishing Sometimes you get good info sometimes you don't. If you always caught fish they would have called it "Catching" instead of "Fishing".

     Thanks for visiting my web site and I hope at least someone catches a fish and if you learned where to catch it or how to catch it from my site well at least I promoted the sport and hopefully you had fun thats all any of us can ask for.

 -------

Tight Lines!

Trevor.

This Weekend Fishing Plan

If your headed out this weekend and looking to catch fish then target your species and be prepared for some heat. Redfish are looking good on the flats on outgoing tides. The Beaches should hold some Snook and will be good early till late morning then again on the evening side. Tarpon are at the bridges and in the passes look for the rolling fish and then find their direction and slowly motor away and ahead of them and let them come to you. Trout are getting a little picky and have moved into the deeper water near channels and deep flats. 6-10Ft will be your best bet. 

Early Sunday Kayak fishing

Hit the water by 5:50am Sunday morning and heade out of our favorite Anclote spot. Early morning and calm water combined to make a great day of fishing. Caught and released 3 Snook all undersized between 15-18 inches but very healthy. Hooked a Black Drum about 5 lbs got him to the kayak and he released himself. Also had a swipe at my top water by one of the largest Red fish I think I have ever seen inshore. Looked like a man in a fish suit he was so big. Heard reports that the reds weren't out on the flats and that people were having a hard time finding them. They are very tricky to find and when you catch one the rest will scatter. Keep an eye out for Mullet and you should find Trout and Reds hanging around with the. Try a Gulp Shrimp rigged with NO WEIGHT and drop it to the bottom and jerk it through the grass or off the top of the grass. You'll probably cactch a lot of Trout but A few Reds will be there too.

HELP TRACK SNOOK IN OUR AREA

If you're a regular fisherman and you have been catching and releasing SNOOK. You can help FWC Biologists track and record our snook population. Just remember these details.
1. Where you caught the fish. (then go to google maps, find the location, Right click and say "whats here" it will show you decimal gps coordinates)
2. Measure the Fish.
3. RELEASE THE FISH (at least until September)
4. GOTO http://www.snookfoundation.org/data and enter your information.

VERY SIMPLE and its for a good cause.

Kayaks, Snook and some Redfish

Hit the water around 5pm up near anclote river and attempted to target some Redfish. But they weren't cooperating. We ended up catching a couple small Snook. This was actually a good thing being this far north we figured we would see a bad effect from the cold earlier in the year. The Snook were about 18-20 inches and they were strong and healthy. This is a good sign that the Snook population is still doing well and should come back strong. We did see a lot of Reds swimming the shallows even one that was swimming in such shallow water about 10 inches along his back was exposed and he just kept swimming along.

Kingfish Just offshore - few tarpon showing

The kingfish are still out there and they seem to be hitting good starting in about 12-20ft of water. Trolling the beaches just outside of Clearwater all the way to johns pass should produce look for bait schools and for birds and you should find them. Also I have heard reports that Tarpon have been seen just outside of Ft. Desoto rolling off the beaches. Hoepfully the warmer water will keep them here and we should see them move into the bridges soon. Trout are a steady bite on the grass flats on outgoing tides and the Red fish seem to be hanging out as well on some of the flats off Dunedin and down near Desoto. Snook are there too but they are off limits best to just leave em alone and target the Reds and Trout, there are enough of them around to satisfy the bite.

Early Tarpon Reports, Redfish Hangin out.

I have heard from a few captains that the Tarpon are already here, and with the weather warming up like it has and the water following suit I believe it shouldn't be much longer before the bridges are a good place to find em rolling. Redfish seem to be hanging out on the flats and the early morning and evening should be your best bets. If your wanting to stay out after the heat hits by midday find the beaches and look for tarpon. Remember those lady fish can be good bait so bag one or two and freeze em up for the next trip out.

OIL SPILL IMAGE

(CLICK THE IMAGE TO SEE IT FULL SIZE)

As you can see from this image the Oil Spill is HUGE. Hopefully it will not reach our shores. The effect on the local habitat would be devastating. I hope that we as local fisherman can help in some way to protect our shores if it comes to that. Maybe with all of the boats we have we would be able to put out some of the barrier devices that hopefully our FLORIDA GOVERNMENT is acquiring now.