Around the Bay

It seems the Mangrove Snapper bite has picked up quite a bit along the ships channels in the bay. Find rock pilings or other structure along the deeper drop offs and you should hook up with some good mangroves. Snook are in the outer passes running in the current. Tarpon are at Gandy and Howard Franklin and should pick up with the new moon strong currents, a good blue crab or lady fish near the top can always hook something to fight. Might be a shark so be prepared. I personally won't be able to enjoy the fishing over here I am heading to San Diego for a week and will be fishing a little here and there in between work. But I am taking my poles and camera so look for a California Fishing Report when I return. Won't do much good here but anxious to see what the fishing is like on the other coast.

Sunshine Skyway

With the onset of the summertime Weather Patterns. we are seeing calmer water and the fishing turn to Summer targets. Tarpon are moving across the outer beaches and within Egmont pass. Grouper and Sharks seem to eb a good bet at the skyway and it seems many of the other species are active across the bay. Look for more reports of Bridge Tarpon being caught and released. The Offshore reefs are holding a lot of action and with the flat waters it should make for a pleasant if not HOT trip out on the water on most weekends. Keep an eye on the thunderstorms and take the proper precautions.

Gandy Tarpon

Tampa Fishing Report: On the water by about 5:45pm headed out of gandy ramp looking for bait we found the bait on a marker near the bridge and filled the livewell with about 30+ Threadfin. Got in place and Anchored under a light and started fishing with the Threadfin. Had a few strong hits nothing exciting and caught a few monster sail cats. Couldn't get a lady fish to hit until the sun hit the horizon then we couldn't get them to stop. We saw a few tarpon rolling and figured it would be on any minute. The Tide and New Moon were at prefect points. BUT we had no luck hooking up. we pulled anchor around 10:00pm and decided to call it since it was Thursday we still had to go to work in the morning.

Apollo Beach Trout

Tampa Fishing Report, On the water by 7:00am we headed out of Apollo beach one of our good friends flats boat and he knew where to take us. South towards Cockroach bay and the grass flats that seemed to be alive once we got on them. Hooked up a couple Gulp Shrimp and started working the grass. Almost right away we hit some good trout and after a couple 15 and 16 inchers we really seemed to be in the middle of em. About 20 fish later and we called it a day. Trout seemed to be the primary fish that were out and about but a small Bonnet head 3 1/2 footer and a couple lady fish also made their presence known. Thursday Night is a Tarpon night and we should have some good pics. My other Buddy Fishing Gandy Bridge said the reds are hitting from the bridge and the Tarpon are rolling early morning in pods looking for schools of bait.

Dunedin Causeway Fishing

Dunedin Causeway was a good spot this weekend for fishing although it seemed that some of the fish turned on only at certain times. One thing we noticed was that at around low tide during the evening hours the Trout seemed to bite better on live and fresh dead shrimp. During the morning hours the Spanish Macks still hit shiny Spoons and jigs and during the hotter times of the day the flounder seemed to be feeding on the bottom on bits of Shrimp. The weather has really heated up and so has the water and the feeding and fishing should be getting just as hot.

Ft. Desoto Shrimp

Snook Season is over and they know it, hanging out by the shorelines, watching you, knowing you can't keep em. Teasing you. SO switch gears. Headed to Ft. Desoto to find some Shrimp. and Man did we find them. between 4 of us we caught 550+ large - jumbo Shrimp. This is one of the easiest things to do if you love Shrimp or just want to catch your own bait. A red Headlamp (makes the eyes glow better) a Small Diameter Hole Net, a Bucket (that floats w/lid), Good dive boots or wading shoes. and a nice calm shallow stretch of water. Look for the eyes glowing in the water then just scoop them up. The Snook are also hanging out too so if you just would rather fish keep your poles along and try it out but if the fish aren't biting. Scoop up some great shrimp and have some Shrimp on the barbee!

SNOOK at Dunedin

Tampa Fishing Report:
Well the season was closed and wouldn't you know it we landed a 30" last night. Dunedin so far is great for us catching Big Snook Last May 1st I landed a 34". But most of the fun is the fight so we went with it, Took a good picture and let em go. We were actually out for a night of Redfish and Shrimp. We took the Kayaks right off the second bridge to Honeymoon Island and went up into the bay where the Caladisi Ferry is. We could see Schools of Mullet and bait fish all over the Bay and the Extreme Low Tide (Full Moon) was making things much more shallow. We thought for sure the reds would be laying under the Mullet Schools. BUT we found only Snook. So after a few hook ups and the 30 incher it was getting dark and we thought we would Shrimp for a little while. We found some perfect grass and found about 200 or so and called it a night. Although Smaller then the Skyway/Desoto Shrimp there seemed to be more. Later in the season we should see a size increase.

Sunday Afternoon Spanish Macks

Tampa Fishing Report,
Spanish Macks were all over the Gandy Fishing Piers Sunday afternoon. The trick was to get the bait to the correct depth. Using a small trolling weight or slip weight and longer leader helped out. Most fish landed were in the 20-24" range with a few smaller and some larger. With the Water temperature picking up to should the fishing.

Redfish In the Morning

Tampa Fishing Report,

Hit the water by 6:45am. Took the kayaks just north of Ft. Desoto Boat ramp and East of Shell Key and we were in the schools of reds all morning until about 11:30am. We hit a few under slot and decided to keep one that hit 19 1/2" Gulp Shrimp, Small red white Jigs and some top waters seemed to do the trick. Judging by the number of Kayaks out and about that morning I don't think that we were the only one that knew they were biting.

Redfish and Shrimping

Tampa Fishing Report,
Hit the water last Wednesday night at about 7:30pm we were going out to get some shrimp but thought we would try out the fishing before it got dark. We started fishing just north of Ft. Desoto Boat Ramp. We fished top water and had quite a few hits from smaller reds and even caught on that was right at limit of 18" we were getting bit regularly so we released him and went for something bigger. We didn't catch any within the slot by dark so we switched over to Catching Shrimp. A strong Headlamp, Good Walking shoes, A small hole Net and a container to keep the shrimp in is all you need. Oh and water about knee to thigh high. Then start scooping em up. We caught about 150 between the two of us and left for the night.

Bay Fishing

On the water by about 7:00am and headed out of Gandy towards the St.Pete Pier area. We decided to tie on a few flashy spoons and troll down that way to see if we could hit a few Spanish macks along the way. BUT no luck. Once on our spots we hit the bottom with some live baits and found that we were getting hits almost immediately. We caught a few undersized mangrove Snappers and a Keeper Sheepshead. The Wave action was rough and we decided to move spots and see if we could find something with a little more action. One thing I've learned is "Never Leave Fish to Find Fish". Actually my buddy tells me that every time we are on the water. BUT since he wasn't there I didn't have that friendly advice. So we moved around and wouldn't you know it the fish weren't where we moved to. All in all not a bad day except for the wind and hopefully the water temperature will bump up a few more degrees and really turn the fish on. Water Temp 69.4

Windy Fishing

Last weekend was crazy to be on the boat but we did it anyway. We hit the Dunedin Causeway area and anchored so the wind wouldn't really affect our fishing that much. The Fish didn't mind the wind and we started getting hits right away. We ended up landing a Keeper Sheepshead, a Spotted Trout, a Black Sea Bass, and a couple Spanish Mackerel. Pin fish and Shrimp were our main bait and a flashy spoon worked great for the macks. Remember this weekend April 21st Red Snapper Season opens

Reds & Macks

Hit the flats on the south Side of Courtney Campbel Causeway with our Kayak Fishing Machines and targeted Reds. Just searching for more spots really and thought this looked ok to fish. What we ended up catching were Spanish mackerel on bright shiny spoons. nice clear water and the day turned out Ok catching the macks seemed to be all that was Biting.

Shrimping Near Desoto

Unusual yes but fun. What you need. A Nice Night and calm shallow bay with a little bit of eel grass. a couple of Small hole diameter nets and a "very bright" LED Red headlamp. walk the grass flats and look for the glowing eyes on the shrimp. slowly slide your net under them and wa la. Shrimp for Dinner. Last Friday Night we tried this the wind was really blowing and so it spoiled our night but we are going to do it again.

Early Kings

On the water by about 6:30am. Launched from Bay Pines Ramp and we even got a call into the Capt. Mel Fishing Show on 620 AM "The Sports Animal" I asked Capt. Mel if we would find any Kingfish?" He said. "look for birds hitting bait and then throw out a shiny flashy lure and you should hit some early kings not the big Smokers but the early ones." Well thats what we did. We hit Indian Shores Reef and as we were trolling across the site looking for bottom structure one of the guys hooked up with a king that caught us all by surprise. We got him to the boat and he straightened the leader. Oops. Anyway we re rigged and started two of us fishing on the bottom for snapper or what have you and the other two for Kings. Man were the Kings in almost every other cast they were hitting the baits thrown and if they didn't hit they were following them all the way into the boat. The Bottom fishing was on but only small bluefish hitting everything that went down. So we all started hitting the kings. we musta caught about 10 fish here, we let go 6 of em and headed to South County Reef. A great day on the water and the boats seemed to be everywhere. We searched for some open structure without other boats on it and we started seeing more kings so we hit a few more of them after the bites on the bottom turned out to be ankle biters. We hooked another 10 Kings here and kept one then we headed to Treasure Island Reef. We hooked 3 18 inch grouper and released em all and finally decided to call it a day. Great Day of fishing and will post pics in a few.

Desoto Pier Fishing

Sheepshead are very abundant. Also the pompano are hitting at a nice rate and many people using the docs goofy Jigs are really slaying them. The bayside pier at Ft. Desoto is a favorite early in the morning for keeper pompano.

Clearwater Pass Fishing

The fishing will be heating up very shortly. There are a few spots worth noting currently. The tops of the bay in the creek mouths are seeing a lot of Snook activity I should have some pictures and a report later this week from the creeks. Additonally I went out to Marker #1 out of clearwater pass and found an abundance of bait fish and other activity there as well. In shore most of the grass flats around the causeways are holding trout.

Bay Fishing

On the water by about 10:30 a late start but really just a lazy fishing day. We headed south outta gandy ramp and were going to try our luck at a spot we found just off St. Pete Pier. Once there we found no fish at all we tried looking for structure ont he bottom and event then found not fish. SO we headed east and anchored just off the shipping channel on the edge of about 40ft water. We immediately started catching one after another Sand Perch (Squirrel Fish) Excellent Grouper Bait, and they taste good but a little too much to clean for such a small fish. The ones we caught were all in about the 10-12in range. After about 20 or so of these we decided that we would head back in since a front was moving in and the water started to really roll. Hopefully we will have better luck in the next few weeks.

Double Branch

Well if the manatees weren't coming up under the Kayaks and the Snook weren't slapping at everything we threw then I guess it would have been a Boring night. We got on the water at around 5:30pm and we were getting hits on top water almost from the time we got in the water. Great night for fishing and the moon, manatees and snook were out in force.

Redfish Tailing

Wow, what a morning, if we could have had the rain stop before 6 it would have been perfect. But when we did get on the water even at 8:00am the redfish were schooled up and hitting everything that we threw at them. Top waters seemed most effective jumping finger mullet to be exact even some of the mirr-o-lure floaters worked great. Near Ft. Desoto Early morning, This time of year is a great site to see about 200 or more redfish tailing in the grass flats. Bad thing (depending on how you look at it) we had to throw back all of the reds we caught because they were TOO BIG....oh well. Trying Over near Dunedin in the near future and will post. (and will bring my camera this next time). bad to catch monsters and not have the pics.....sounds like a (RED)fish tail to me.