    
Capt. John Sackett
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Votes: 0 | | Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2001 - 9:00 pm: | |
Subject: The latest action from www.AnglingAdventure.com
Once again, my apologies…
It seems like a real shame that about half of my reports this year have started out the same way, with me apologizing for the delay in getting them written, but I guess the good news is that it means I’ve been real busy. No, it has all been the good kind of, on the water, rippin’ the lips off fish kind of busy, but 2001 sure has been busy in one manner or another. Between all cobia hunting we did last winter, the snookin’ we got in through early spring, the kingfish action we saw all the way into July, and of course the incredible tarpon action we had from the end of February through the middle of July, it’s been a really busy year. On the down side though, the majority of the delays I’ve had getting these reports out have been due to technical difficulties! In one season I have managed to nuke, a desktop computer system, a laptop computer, and even an outboard motor! None of those failures were ever explained as far as what caused them, but boy oh boy, it’s been a pain in the a-- dealing with them. Okay, enough excuses, time to get on with the report!
Offshore action is hard to beat!
With water temperatures inside of Tampa Bay and the even shallower bays adjacent to it, reaching clear into the mid-nineties at the height of the day, beating the heat has been a big priority. Three tactics designed to do so, are of course to fish the lower light periods of the day, fish the strongest incoming tide you possibly can, or of course, just head offshore a bit to more temperate waters. It is this last recommendation that I’ll focus on here.
Now by fishing offshore I don’t necessarily mean that you have to head 80 plus miles out into the Gulf (although that’s exactly what I did last weekend), in fact you can get into plenty of action within 3-5 miles of the beaches themselves. Just off our area beaches find yourself alongside a wreck, a reef, or just some good live bottom, and you never know what might happen. What you better plan on though to capitalize on these opportunities, is to bring along plenty of tackle. You’re going to need some light spinning gear to have fun with the snapper and mackerel, you’ll need some medium weight gear for the permit, and of course if it’s a wreck you’re fishing on, you better bring the heaviest stuff you can get your hands on for the goliath grouper that undoubtedly live within it. It’ll take everything from 9/0 heavy hooks, down to the little 1/0 snapper sized ones, and it’ll take your favorite fishing line from 8 pound all the way up to 80 pound test, but it’s been well worth the effort lately.
Now if you are a little more adventuresome, and have a boat capable of wandering safely a little farther from home, this is the perfect time to go deep! Sure, going deep is a relative thing and it takes a 30 mile run just to find a hundred feet of water in our part of the Gulf, but once you get to a hundred feet or more, the Gulf is an awesome place to be! Sure those anglers fishing nearer to shore will catch plenty of action right now, but if you are looking for some extra-large fish to take home for supper, head for the blue waters and enjoy. Okay, all those “little” snapper inshore eat well too, but as I said if you want extra-large fish for supper, deeper is better. Look at another advantage to this strategy, you can clean 10 nice mangrove snapper from our inshore waters back at the dock to yield 10 pounds of filets, or you can clean one 17 pounder from further offshore to aquire the same amount of meat. It sure is faster to clean one than it is ten! That was exactly the strategy that we utilized aboard my 34 foot Baja last weekend when I had the pleasure of fishing with Glen Gee, his wife Lynn, and two of their buddies Troy and Scott. Talk about bringing home some meat, we ended up catching and cleaning half a dozen or so mahi (and caught and released at least another dozen while they were swiping the bait we were freelining back to the yellowtails) up to about three pounds, a pile of beautiful yellowtail snapper in the 2-4 pound bracket, 5 mutton snapper from 10-17 pounds and a rare treat for our area, a 46 pound cubera snapper as well. Add to all of that delicious snapper, the extreme fatigue that comes with the dozen or so amberjack we landed from 25-34 pounds and you have the makings for one heck of a trip!
While that was the tally for just one trip, keep in mind that almost anything is possible out there in the blue waters. Just last month, Dr. Ryan Magnus managed his best kingfish ever while we were trying to sneak up on a school if blackfin tuna, Capt. Chris Seger chalked up another beautiful sailfish, and the Morse family got the pleasure of eating a pair of beautiful 20 plus pound mahi-mahi that we hauled aboard my Baja back around August 1st! Then again, when you consider the fact that Doc’s kingfish went 32-34 pounds and that he caught it with a 12 pound Crowder spinning rod, a 1/0 Owner SSW hook and only 30 pound mono leader, you know that almost anything is possible! Fall is coming and the grouper will again be taking center stage in closer to shore, but in the mean time if you can devote a full-day effort to it, my advise is to “go deep”.
There is still flats fun too…
Back up in the shallow water there is a whole lot of fun to be had too, but you can’t expect to find it in the same places you would when the water was only in the 80 degree range. Like I said above, use the top of the tide to get the coolest possible temps, or do your flats work during lower light periods. The snook are of course one of our most temperature sensitive species, so you can expect that their mood will be one of the worst when it comes to co-operating with anglers desires. Sure you’ll find a whole bunch of them hanging around your favorite flats, but it’ll take more than a little effort finding them at the exact time that they are willing to feed. Better bet may be to hunt yourself some redfish. August and September are the months when the reds will school up in some of the biggest herds of the year, and the sight of copper colored water all around your skiff can be unbelievable. On a good day, you can get into 20 plus fish in the 30 inch range and beyond, but if you get truly lucky and find a herd of unmolested fish you may end up with catch totals of double that! Okay, finding those fish can be a hit or miss type of proposition, but if you’d like more of a sure thing, and you want to stay a whole lot cooler too, my recommendation would be to book yourself a shark trip.
Obviously the shark population has gotten a whole lot of exposure in the press lately, so no one really doubts that there are plenty of sharks out there, but we think that we’re doing all the beach goers a favor by interrupting their feeding patterns just a bit with our catch and release style mood control tactics. The recipe for success is fairly straightforward, just take some smelly bait (bonito, mullet it doesn’t matter much which you prefer), anchor up where your favorite flats drains into deeper waters just as the sun is setting, use your favorite 20-30 pound spinning outfit, and wait for jaws to come calling. This is heavy duty battle time if you hook a big boy, but even the little blacktips, blacknoses, lemons and hammerheads in the 4-6 foot range that frequent our flats will be more than entertaining on the right gear. You can reasonably expect that you may get spooled if something in the 8 foot plus range shows up, or for that matter when a tarpon grabs your smelly stuff and takes off so fast that you never even get the anchor untied, but that’s the kind of adrenalin rush that we all love to fish for anyway, isn’t it? My preference is an 8 foot Crowder rod like the ones I use through tarpon season, matched to one of Penn’s new “liveliner” model spinning reels with 300 hundred yards of 30 pound power pro line tied to a six foot section of 80 pound mono, and finally to a couple feet of 90 pound test wire and a 6/0 hook. Then it time to just sit back and relax. Fortunately, if the tide is running pretty good, they probably won’t keep you waiting too long!
Lastly, when it comes to inshore fun in the heat of summer, you may want to hunt just as much as fish. I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but there is something about sightcasting that can be just out of this world! Two target that are worth hunting right now are the permit and the cobia. First permit, second cobes. The permit potential is right here, right now. It’s not the kind of action that we had a couple of years ago with thousands of fish happily swimming over nearly every rockpile in the area, but it can be incredibly rewarding to hunt singles and pairs as they work along to edges of the shallowest flats. Then again, who’s not to say that you might be hunting for pairs when the motherload shows up? A big school of perms to anglers in the west central part of Florida isn’t measured by the score, or even the dozen. A big school to us number well into the hundreds, and oftentime into the thousands. There’s nothing quite like the sight of these monster schools, or the laughter that will often accompany the double and triple hook-ups, but one things for sure, you won’t be there when they do show up if you’re not out there hunting for them! The cobia aren’t going to show up in huge schools right now like you might find them during the winter months, but the singles, pairs and triples that you will find more and more frequently as mid September nears and passes, can be awesome! Best yet, when you find them on slick calm, muggy mornings like Capt. Billy Nobles does, chances are they’ll be cruising just below the surface. Talk about being in sightcasting heaven… This is about as good as it gets.
A look ahead…
Well, I already touched on the invasion of cobia that we’ll be chasing up in the bays, I talked about the permit potential that’ll last through Halloween, and I talked about the grouper that once again will come marching in from the depths of the Gulf, to the waters just outside, and even inside our area bays, what more could you want? Okay, how about some of the best snook action of the year from mid September through mid November, or for that matter our fall kingfish run. If you’ve never experienced a fish that takes drag so fast that your reel can actually go silent, you’ve got to come and do some light tackle kingfishing with us. We’ve got a lot to look forward to, so get in touch with us real soon and we’ll set aside a day for you.
Like my friend Capt. Mark always said,
“Catch ‘em up”
Capt. John Sackett
http://www.AnglingAdventure.com
captsackett@anglingadventure.com
(941) 920-4891 Mobile
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