FULL Moon Weekend - Tarpon Trout and Pompano

Depending on what your fishing for you are in luck this weekend since it is a full moon weekend there will be a lot of fish wanting to eat. Tarpon on all the Bay Bridges, and on the outside beaches from Egmont to Anclote. Trout on the Flats, Redfish up in the mangroves on High Tide, Snook on the Beaches, Snapper in the Shipping channels and deeper bridge cuts, Pompano along Howard Franklin and Gandy bridges. IF thats not enough then the Shark Fishing should be good as well. I myself will be trying along the Anclote Key beaches and the Honeymoon beaches for Tarpon. Hopefully I can find em and cast to em and we should be able to hook up. Remember the Early mornings and evenings are going to be your best bites BUT the fishing has been outstanding lately and even the heat is keeping the fish from biting.

Howard Park - Trout and some Tarpon

Hit the water by 7am the tide was outgoing and it seemed like a good morning. However we weren't able to see any Tarpon rolling early. So we threw some topwater plugs and had a few nice strikes but they were random and nothing consistent. We did spot a few small pods of tarpon but they weren't that active and throughout the day we saw only about 3 pods that were too far away and by the time we moved in their direction they were gone. The Trout bite was hot though and is the goto fish in the early morning and throughout the day on jigs and underwater plugs in the 5-8ft water. anything shallower and the bite shuts down. Yesterday's favorite color was a light natural gulp swim bait. We left the water by about 11am and headed back.

TARPON ROLLING

Sunday Morning was a good day to be on the water. The Sun had just come up and put the Kayaks in off the Howard Park causewau around 7am. Started off by drifting accross the flats and getting multiple strikes and hookups on topwater plugs. About 6 good sized keeper trout and 2 nice sized Spanish Mackerel.  The excitement of the day was the Tarpon Rolling in pods all around me. It seemed they were small pods of about 5-8 fish BUT once I was able to get close enough I found that the 5-8 I saw were part of about a 50+ fish POD. and it wasn't the only pod seen. At the same time all across the flats and some of the 4-7 ft water. Watched a rental pontoon boat fishign for trout Hook up with about a 120lber he showed them his head and shook it to throw the hook. Of cours they were pretty excited especially the girls on the boat. Hoepfully it will be the same this coming Friday since I will be able to get back out there right before the weekend to try and hook up with them.