    
Capt. John Sackett
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 | | Posted on Sunday, April 01, 2001 - 9:53 pm: | |
Subject: The latest from www.AnglingAdventure.com
Follow the bouncing ball…
Literally, the water temps around here have been like a bouncing ball. One day the temps in the bay and Gulf are being reported at 72 degrees or better, the very next it’s all the way back down into the mid to upper sixties! Now being the admitted tarpon addict that I am, this situation can be a little discouraging, but thankfully there are a whole lot of other options to play with here in the Tampa Bay area as well.
First the Tarpon…
How can you not cover triple digit fish first whenever they’re available? I mean, six foot long fish that do cartwheels ten feet in the air can be a life altering experience for those that have never experienced it. The last couple of weeks the action could be either hit or miss on the GIANT fish depending on whether your fishing day happened to fall on one of those warm water days, or the cooler ones. Without a doubt though there is nothing more satisfying than getting anglers onto their first “silver king” experience, and this week one of the most satisfied guides I know of had to be Capt. T.J. Stewart from right here in Bradenton. You see T.J. and I worked a trip with 5 anglers aboard 2 boats last weekend and despite the cool temps on the bay that morning, he hooked Bob North’s brother to his first truly BIG fish. With the angler applying the pressure required and T.J. running the big Honda outboard on the back of his boat like the expert he is, the outcome was certain and they hoisted the fish of a lifetime aboard for the prerequisite “Kodak” moment.
The bottom line as I have written here before, is that if your fishing day coincides with calm winds, good tidal flow and warming temps, our early season tarpon fishing is darned near a guaranteed thing! The water’s will get prettier as we follow their migration out onto nearby sand flats in May and June, but the catch totals in the “early” season are really hard to beat.
The other inshore options…
If the wind is blowing just a little too hard to make working out in the bigger part of the bay, don’t despair ‘cause the snook fishing right now is just about as good as it gets. Catch totals for guides like myself, Capt. Billy Nobles out of Land’s End marina in Apollo Beach, Capt. Jason Ramsey from Palmetto and the aforementioned Capt. T.J. Stewart have once again grown back into the dozens, and more often than not, full-day trips are yielding 30 to 40 fish. Live bait has been hard to beat and thankfully fairly easy to find, but if you do want to play with artificials, I’d recommend either ¼ ounce jigs with your favorite rubber bodies, or I’d do some pluggin’. If tossing plugs is up your alley, the most effective ones I’ve used lately are either the Catch 2000’s by Mirro-lure, or if the water is at least a couple feet deep, the Tobi-Maru style by Yo-Zuri. Better yet, get a couple of rods going with the livebait, and let one angler do the plug thing just to insure you are covering all the water possible.
Okay, so you’re not a snook fanatic yet, well I’d recommend going to the trout bank for a little supper if need be, or I’d just keep my eyes peeled for signs of jack activity. The schools of jack crevalle have been actively terrorizing bait schools throughout the area and will provide plenty of excitement if you get an opportunity to cash in on them. Let’s face it, if you want to stretch your 8-10 pound mono to it’s limit, or maybe take a look at the shiny part of your spool a little quicker than you though possible, nothing will do it for you quite like a double digit jack will. If you are chumming with live shiners don’t be surprised if the jacks invade your favorite snook hole, like they did for T.J.’s clients yesterday, but if you want to target them specifically, just keep looking for bird activity in the open parts of the bays. If you find them blitzing through bait schools, anything goes! We caught them the other day on topwater plugs, we got them on jigs, and we got them on gold spoons! Cast it toward the melee, and rip it back about as quick as you can. It won’t matter how fast you retrieve it, they’ll catch it more often than not. Then again, half the fun is watching them chasing it right across the water’s surface! No, jacks don’t have a whole lot of value as far as food goes, but if your idea of fun is a fish that will absolutely slam a bait right out of the water and dump a hundred fifty yards of light line quicker than you can read this sentence, jacks are just about the perfect fish!
Okay, maybe jacks are a little faster, but one other fish I can’t afford not to talk about here has to be the cobia. Why I need to mention the cobia has little to do with my own activity as I spent a fair amount of time doing some hunting aboard my Hydra-Sports with only a couple of small fish to show for it, but Capt. Billy had some awesome activity to report on up in Tampa Bay itself and Capt. T.J. had a truly exceptional cobia experience as well. Those of you that follow my reports know that April is a magic time for hunting cobia on our area flats and the sightcasting can be out of this world, but the action these guys had the last week in March was really awesome. Billy’s reported action was on high quantity fish, which always match up really well with light tackle, but T.J.’s action was of a different sort altogether. To try and make a long story relatively short, let me tell you that T.J. was in the right place at the right time out on one of the big flats along Southeastern Tampa Bay the other day whe he spotted a pod of about 30 cobes cruising way up in really shallow water. He maneuvered his boat into position to intercept the pod, and when they were in range he cast to the group. Typical of cobes in shallow water the pay-off was almost immediate, but as usual, one of the school’s smaller sized fish was the quickest one to the bait. Then again I’m pretty sure T.J. was really glad that he had his tarpon tackle with him that day, since the “smaller” fish was still 57 inches long and approximately 50 pounds! Needless to say, despite the tarpon caught over the last couple of weeks, a fifty pound cobia gets this week’s “catch of the week” honors on the flats. If you want to see a picture of an extra-large “flats” fish, just drop an e-mail to captsackett@anglingAdventure.com titled “catch of the week” and I’ll e-mail you back a picture of T.J.’s big brown fish.
Offshore options too…
Whether it’s Capt. Sam Kimball of the charterboat Legend out of Cortez, Capt. Chris Seger out of Sarasota, or Capt. Allan Engel out of Palmetto on one of his days off, the action in the offshore water around here has been awesome. Between the spring run of kingfish, the still decent grouper bite or the permit that are taking up residence around some our wrecks and reefs, one of your toughest decisions right now is what to fish for. Let’s just say that my recommendation right now is that when you head offshore, I’d have a well full of live shiners, some frozen sardines, some jumbo shrimp and at least a few palm sized crabs. Sure just getting all that stuff together involves a lot of work, but the results lately have been well worth the effort with all of the aforementioned guides.
Highlights of the last couple of weeks have been inclusive of 20 plus pound permit and more than a few kingfish for both Capt. Sam’s and Capt. Chris’ clients, but there have been some truly remarkable catches as well. How incredible you ask? Well, Capt. Sam has been hookin’ folks to enough amberjack to insure plenty of Ben-Gay sales, but there was also the 350 pound jewfish Capt. Chris hauled aboard his big sportfish last week. Now that’s a serious catch!
In terms of saving the best for last so to speak, one notable day that I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention here, had to be the day that Capt. Alan Engle, Capt. Keith Rogers and Chris Westbury had last week. Proof positive that spring is an incredible time to be on the water was evidenced by their scorecard for the day. How’s this sound? A limit of gag grouper, 6 kingfish and 3 cobia. If that sounds fun, but not unbelievable, let me fill in a couple of other facts about their outing. How about the fact that they were back at the dock by 11:00am? Still not convinced that their action was truly incredible? Oh yeah, the 3 cobia were 30 pounds, 50 pounds, and 95 pounds respectively! Needless to say, congratulations are in order all around for Capt. Alan and the boys. What a day! To give Alan offshore “catch of the week” honors for that monster is a lay-up despite Chris’ heroics on the monster jewfish, but a cobia that close to a hundred pounds in our part of the Gulf is truly rare and deserves even more. Heck, this might turn out to be a catch of the year or something. Since our spring kingfish run is here right now, and the next month or two will offer the best shot we’ll probably ever get at 50 plus pound cobia, I might have to break away from the tarpon for a day or two and stretch the legs on my 34 foot Baja a little more frequently.
Well, with any luck at all this has given you some idea of the type of action the waters off West Central Florida have to offer. If you are looking to book a charter or want more information on what’s going on, be sure and visit me at http://www.AnglingAdventure.com real soon!
Like my friend Capt. Mark always said,
Catch ‘em up!
Capt. John Sackett
(941) 920-4891
|
