| Fishing Guide / Author |
Fishing Reports for Local Area - Location |
    
Captain Rob Salimbene (Mangroveman)
New member
Username: Mangroveman
Post Number: 8
Registered: 3-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 26, 2009 - 6:45 am: | |
Spring is here and the fish have turned on!!! This is my favorite time of year to fish the bay, because the entire area is alive with life. The fish are chewing, the birds are chirping and the weather is mild and warm.
Snook have made their migration out of the backcountry and are on the move toward our local passes and beaches. They are staging up in their usually spring areas before the head to the beaches and are eating with great regularity. I have been using live whitebait, rigged on a 2/0 circle hook and 25lb. leader. Most of the fish have been averaging 20 to 25 inches with the occasional fish over 30. I have been targeting deep mangrove shorelines adjacent to backcountry areas and the fish have been stacking up as they transition to the beaches.
Redfish have schooled up and are feeding aggressively around the major and minor solunar periods. I have been free-lining live whitebait around mullet schools in the Ft. Desoto area and the fish have been averaging 24 to 30 inches. These fish are very spooky and there are normally lots of boats out there trying for the same fish, so be courteous and move around slowly and there should be plenty of fish for everyone.
Trout have also come back strong to our area. I have caught 2 Trout within the past week that have been over 25 inches and 5lbs. The Trout have been mixed in with the mullet schools and have been tearing up live whitebait fished under corks. They key to this type of fishing is the mullet. Move around until you find mullet and then quietly stop the boat and start pitching baits into the school. Fresh cutbait also works well for this type of fishing. A little patience and some great catches can be had.
Spring is a great time of year in the bay area. Take the family out and try some of these tactics and I am sure you will put some fish in the boat. |
Capt Rick Rodriguez (Gulfgrouper)
New member
Username: Gulfgrouper
Post Number: 144
Registered: 8-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 3:42 pm: | |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Charter Boat Gulf Grouper Fishing Report
Location: Hernando Beach Fla, Grouper Country
Charter Boat Gulf Grouper Fishing Report
Hernando Beach
24 March 09
Grouper, Grunts, Mangrove Snapper, and Spanish Mackerel are what is happening in the Gulf water west of Hernando Beach. Nonstop action all-day with dead and live bait. Still catching plenty of Gag Grouper every day we go out.
Forecast: Looking for Kingfish to show up any day. Lately, Sharks, Bonita's and small Cobia are around.
Sea ya on the water,
Capt Rick Rodriguez
727-992-9494
www.gulfgrouper.com |
Captain Rob Salimbene (Mangroveman)
New member
Username: Mangroveman
Post Number: 7
Registered: 3-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 4:10 pm: | |
Tampa Bay Fishing Report February 11, 2009
The cooler temperatures these past couple weeks have slowed fishing all over the bay area, however with the predictions of warmer weather coming; the fishing should begin to get back to its regular wintertime pattern.
Recently, Redfish have been a prime target for my trips. I have been working the negative low tides and have been concentration on grass and mud flats in about 1 to 2 feet of water. As the tide drops and the mud becomes exposed the fish will move off into the adjacent grassy areas. Then, when the tide rises and covers the mud flat the fish are pushing back up onto the mud to keep warm. The mud gets baked in the hot sun and can sometimes be as much as 5 degrees warmer than the surrounding areas. I have been using DOA shadtails in golden bream color rigged on a 1/8th ounce Mission Fishin jigheads in chartreuse. The fish have been anywhere from 17 to 30 inches.
Trout are also still being caught on the local grass flats during the negative tide periods all around Ft. Desoto and the south shore. I have been using live whitebait or a gulp and jighead combo rigged under a popping cork and the fish have been averaging 15 to 20 inches. Look for the Trout to position themselves in the grass facing towards the potholes (sandspots) and the current on the flats. Working the edges of the potholes slowly should produce some consistent catches. Once you catch a couple in an area, anchor up and work that area thoroughly because there should be more around.
Lastly, sheepshead have made a pretty good showing in our local waters and should continue to do so up until the end of march when they spawn. Although it is possible to target Sheepies on the flats, I have been hitting local structure in deeper water. A half shrimp and no. 4 hook rigged with as little weight as possible has been working consistently to put some decent catches in the boat. As the water warms look for the Sheepies to begin to school up in great numbers around all our local bridges and artificial reefs as they begin their spawn.
Although the cold lately has thrown things off, there are warmer temperatures ahead, and the fishing is only going to get better and better. February is upon us and spring is right around the corner. Try some of these areas and tactics and hopefully it will make your time on the water more productive.
Captain Rob Salimbene
Mangrove Man Charters
www.mangroveman.com |
Captain Rob Salimbene (Mangroveman)
New member
Username: Mangroveman
Post Number: 6
Registered: 3-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 4:37 pm: | |
Well, it was inevitable that we would eventually get some cooler weather and with the onset of January, the weather has finally caught up with us. The hot fishing and hot weather we were experiencing through December has cooled off and our fishing has slowed. Warm one week, cool the next has the fish a little confused and on kind of an odd pattern for this time of year.
I have been catching Snook along the south shore of Tampa Bay from the Skyway to Simmons Park using live whitebait, although I think with the cooler temperatures, shrimp will be the bait of choice in the upcoming weeks. When the water cools down, fish get lethargic. Imagine you are floating around in cold water, what happens to your body? You get slow, its hard to move, and you lack energy. Fish are the same way. With our cooling waters, look for the Snook bite to slow down. The fish will be moving to warm water areas such as dark bottom backcountry areas, local residential canals, and our local rivers. If you are targeting Snook, focus your fishing on some of these areas and you should continue to have some decent catches.
Seatrout have come back into season around the bay area and the fish are making a pretty good showing. A couple years ago, Trout fishing was almost wiped out due to the red-tide that decimated out area, but the Trout have rebounded and the fishing is regaining its prowess. Look for Trout on all our local grass flats where water is moving and there is speckled bottom.(grass and sand mixed) I have been catching my Trout on everything from DOA shrimp under a popping cork, to live whitebait. Remember if you are not going to keep the Trout, try to handle them as little as possible and put them back carefully so they can keep adding to our stocks.
Lastly, I have been targeting Mangrove Snapper around deeper structure in the Bay. Cut whitebait, or shrimp has been producing well during new and full moon periods. Moving water is key to this type of fishing, so find water movement, and you should find some happy fish. I like using as light a leader as possible when targeting Snapper, so I use 20lb. fluorocarbon tied with a loop-knot to a No.1 or 2 circle hook, and a small split shot.
All in all fish are still there to be had so put in your time and you can have some decent catches. Wintertime fishing is here, so let’s bide our time and July will be here before we know it. |
Capt Rick Rodriguez (Gulfgrouper)
New member
Username: Gulfgrouper
Post Number: 110
Registered: 8-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 05, 2008 - 2:55 pm: | |
Charter Boat Gulf Grouper Fishing Report
Hernando Beach
05 December 2008
In between cold fronts the water temperature has gone up to 67 degrees and the Grouper fishing is outstanding. With perfect water conditions come spectacular fishing trips. Many anglers this week enjoyed limits of Gag Grouper. Some fish were in excess of 15 pounds. A slow approach has been the trick to make the Grouper bite. Just leave the bait on the bottom and do not move it. Unbelievable, but true this really works. Best baits are still Northern Mackerel , Grunt heads, and chunks of Mullet.
Hernando Beach Fishing Forecast: Grouper season is at its peak. There is great fishing now!
Sea ya on the water
Capt Rick Rodriguez
727-992-9494
www.gulfgrouper.com |
Capt Rick Rodriguez (Gulfgrouper)
New member
Username: Gulfgrouper
Post Number: 108
Registered: 8-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, November 30, 2008 - 3:45 pm: | |
Charter Boat Gulf Grouper Fishing Report
Hernando Beach
01 December 2008
The water temperature dropped so fast that the easy in close Grouper fishing slowed down. Moving off- shore a little to warmer fishing locations made catching Grouper consistent. Little more time running paid off with big Groupers in the box. Larger Northern Mackerel baits made the difference this week. Larger baits stay together longer while the Grunts and other reef fish attack it. Grouper sometimes move slower this time of the year; the larger bait holds up long enough for the Grouper to find and eat it. Small adjustments in bait and depth of water will ensure more consistent catches during sudden changes in water temperature.
Best baits are still Northern Mackerel , Grunt heads, and chunks of Mullet.
Hernando Beach Fishing Forecast: Grouper season is at its peak. There is great fishing now!
Sea ya on the water
Capt Rick Rodriguez
727-992-9494
www.gulfgrouper.com |
Capt. Keith Tomlinson (Bulldogfishin)
New member
Username: Bulldogfishin
Post Number: 5
Registered: 5-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 12:50 pm: | |
Captain Keith Tomlinson /Bulldog Fishin Charters www.bulldogfishin.com
The redfish have been hot north of bayport op to chasshowitzka. Thes big red “fire trucks” are always a blast on light tackle and they really will put your angling skills to the test. The trout bite has slowed a little with this cold weather but the mackerel are still in good numbers.
On calm days we have been going offshore a little to 8 -12 feet of water and have been catching the famous shallow water grouper famous for this area of the nature coast. Gulf Grouper with captain rick rodriguez and thunder party boat with captain mike senker have been catching grouper at all depths of water but in the spring and fall even us inshore guys get to enjoy the grouper action in the shallows.
Come enjoy the nature coast with me!!! call for a reservation. #(352)238-3581
We supply:
tackle
fishing liscense
coolers/ice
clean your fish
a good safe day on the water
 |
Capt Rick Rodriguez (Gulfgrouper)
New member
Username: Gulfgrouper
Post Number: 105
Registered: 8-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, November 15, 2008 - 10:16 am: | |
Charter Boat Gulf Grouper Fishing Report
Hernando Beach
15 Nov 2008
This week has been the easy Grouper fishing we have been waiting for. Lots of keeper size GAG Grouper in all depths of water. We prefer the shallow waters closer to home that provide us more fishing time and less fuel expense. Even if you are not a meat hunter you can enjoy the tough fight a big grouper dishes out. In the shallow depths a fight to the surface is expected with line ripping lunges towards the structure on the bottom. Pretty exciting stuff! Most GagZillas continue to break lines and leaders on the rocks below. This line busting experience is what makes most anglers want to go back out and try again.
Best baits are still Threadfin Herring , Grunt heads, and chunks of Boston Mackerel.
Hernando Beach Fishing Forecast: Grouper season is almost at its peak. There will be great fishing in the near future for lots of Gag Grouper in close.
Sea ya on the water, book a trip soon!
Capt Rick Rodriguez
727-992-9494
www.gulfgrouper.com |
Capt Rick Rodriguez (Gulfgrouper)
New member
Username: Gulfgrouper
Post Number: 100
Registered: 8-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, November 03, 2008 - 4:21 pm: | |
Capt. Rick Rodriguez
November 3, 2008
Hernando Beach - Saltwater Fishing Report
Charter Boat Gulf Grouper Fishing Report
Hernando Beach
3 Nov 2008
Like all previous reports I will explain to the fishing community; Grouper fishing is very good here in the Hernando Beach area. We are catching GAG Groupers, Red Groupers, Grunts, Mangrove Snapper, and Spanish Mackerel. The water temperature is a perfect 73 degrees, perfect for bigger Grouper. Dead Threadfin Herring are still the best bait even though other baits will work. The water clarity is improving so live bait will begin to work more often than not. Preferred method is dead bait, 4 foot long leaders, and please match the circle hook size in proportion to the size bait you are using.
Sea ya on the water,
Capt Rick Rodriguez
727-992-9494
www.gulfgrouper.com
Hernando Beach Fishing Forecast:
Hernando Beach Fishing Forecast: More King fish will be in the area after the next cold front passes. Larger Gag Grouper will be pushed down also as the water temperature continues to drop. Fish slower and chum a little to get the Grouper bite going.
Sea ya on the water,
Capt Rick Rodriguez
727-992-9494
www.gulfgrouper.com |
Capt Rick Rodriguez (Gulfgrouper)
New member
Username: Gulfgrouper
Post Number: 85
Registered: 8-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2008 - 7:30 am: | |
Charter Boat Gulf Grouper Fishing Report
Hernando Beach
16 October 2008
Grouper fishing is good, we have been catching allot of small Red and Gag Groupers. Each day we catch over a hundred fish that are released. At the end of the day we usually have enough keeper size Grouper to make anyone happy. The Kingfish are starting to show up here and there; however the Spanish Mackerel are all over the place in all depths of water. Many Mangrove Snapper and Grunts are caught each trip and are a welcome addition to any fish fry. The best baits are Threadfin Herring and live Pinfish.
Hernando Beach Fishing Forecast: More King fish will be in the area after the next cold front passes. Larger Gag Grouper will be pushed down also as the water temperature continues to drop. Fish slower and chum a little to get the Grouper bite going.
Sea ya on the water,
Capt Rick Rodriguez
727-992-9494
www.gulfgrouper.com |
CaptainIDS (Captainids)
New member
Username: Captainids
Post Number: 22
Registered: 9-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 05, 2007 - 10:05 am: | |
Are you a Licensed Coast Guard Captain?
This is for you
http://www.captainids.com/ |
Captain Rob Salimbene (Mangroveman)
New member
Username: Mangroveman
Post Number: 4
Registered: 3-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, July 27, 2007 - 3:39 pm: | |
Fishing on the bay has hit its summer swing with Snook being my primary target. I have been working flats and beaches early in the morning before the sun gets too high. Most of the fish I am getting are averaging 24 to 30 inches with a couple being slobs in the low 40's. I have been throwing topwater early, then switching over to livebait as the water temp warms up in the afternoon. Redfish are still going strong in the upper bay for anglers using chunked lady fish and live pinfish. Fish around oyster bars and shady mangrove points for best action later in the day. Tarpon are still off the beaches with most catches coming around sun-up and sun-down. Work these school very slowly and deliberatly with either a live pass crab or a large live threadfin. With the weather being as hot and humid as it is, try to keep your trips short and to the point. Have a plan ahead of time, so that you are not keeping yourself and your crew sitting in the sun longer than needed. Good luck...and Tight lines....Captain Rob |
Captain Rob Salimbene (Mangroveman)
New member
Username: Mangroveman
Post Number: 3
Registered: 3-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, May 03, 2007 - 8:00 am: | |
Fishing the bay during April was great....we were consistently have 20+ snook trips and multiple redfish days. The key for the snook has been trying to get the most natural presentation possible. The fish have been ranging from about 3 to 15 pounds with 3 for the month goin over 40inches. The fish are staging in the passes, so the key is to find moving water and present your bait in the most natural way possible. I have been using 20lb leader and a No.1 circle hook. Keep an eye on the tides and work the new and full moon periods and you should be rewarded with great snook action. Livebait is plentiful, so catch a well full of greenbacks and put the artificials away for a while.
May = Tarpon Time in Tampa Bay. The poons havent showed up just yet, but there are a few straglers here and there. The first full moon of May should be the start of a great Tarpon season that should last through the month of July and into mid August. Pass crabs are the ticket for bait, and they can be netted up floating on the outgoing tides. The snook fishing will continue to improve also but remember that the season is closed May 1 - September 1 so revive your catch and let them swim to fight another day. About mid May the snook will begin to congregate around the beach-like areas to begin to spawn....work these areas slowly, as to not spook the whole school, and you could be on some of the best snook action anywhere in the world. Live greenbacks, or threadfins are hard to beat for bait. Here are a couple of Snook from a recent outting.....
[IMG]http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e82/Glove2424/Snook2.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e82/Glove2424/Snook.jpg[/IMG] |
Captain Rob Salimbene (Mangroveman)
New member
Username: Mangroveman
Post Number: 2
Registered: 3-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 7:45 am: | |
The bay area has been on fire over the last month and will only continue to heat up!! My main target the last couple weeks has been snook, which are moving out of their winter areas and heading toward the passes to fatten up before the spawn. These fish have been very aggressive, attacking live whitebait almost as fast as you can put it in the water. I have been fishing incomming tides, and have been freelining my baits on a NO. 1 circle hook.
Another species that is coming on strong right now in the bay area are the spannish mackeral. They are here thick, following the bait schools up into the bay. A live greenback works well for these fish, rigged on a NO.1 longshank J hook. I use the long shank hook because it prevents the mackeral from biting through the line, and I feel it helps me land more fish. Please be courteous of others fishing the mackeral schools, start your drift well upcurrent of the fish and let them work towards you....turn your engine off, and use a trolling motor or drift through the school casting as you go.
As for the upcomming month of April...the fishing is goin to stay hot...and with the coming of the famed "Silver King" anglers in Tampa Bay will be out in full force. Toward the end of April and the beginning of may look for the Tarpon to arrive. These fish stop around our beaches, bridges and passes on thier annual migration along the gulf coast. When targeting these fish use heavy tackle, 50LB braid connected to 60LB leader and a 6/0 circle hook. Keep heavy pressure on the fish, get them to the boat quickly, take a photo and then revive and release them. The more we all do to conserve this fishery the better it will be in the coming years.
Also in April, Snook will continue to make a strong showing. They will begin to move from the passes and toward the beaches to spawn. April and May are prime months in Tampa Bay to catch a trophy snook. However, just like Tarpon, make sure you release them carefully, because those trophys are often times our breeders that keep our stocks plentiful for the coming years. |
Captain Rob Salimbene (Mangroveman)
New member
Username: Mangroveman
Post Number: 1
Registered: 3-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 08, 2007 - 8:48 am: | |
Fishing around the Tampa Bay area has been heating up along with the temperatures. The fish are beginning to move from the back country winter hideaways to the outside flats following the warming water. We have been having great catches of Snook, and Sea Trout. Best bet for both of these species is to net up some whitebait(greenbacks) and then pitch them into the pot-holes on the flats during moving tide phases. Another great option for Sea trout is a DOA shrimp under a popping cork. Sheepshead are around all the bridges and structure around the bay. These fiesty fish are great table fare and are very entertaining to catch. A small NO.4 hook, with pieces of fresh shrimp and a split shot is the preferred method of catching these toothy critters. Overall the fishing around the bay has been great, and will only get better this month as the air temperatures stabilize and begin to warm up. Get out there and wet a line, today could be the day you catch that trophy.
Captain Rob Salimbene
Mangrove Man Charters
www.mangroveman.com
863-899-0984 |
Ed Caum (Scububba)
New member
Username: Scububba
Post Number: 1
Registered: 3-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 16, 2006 - 11:51 am: | |
I'll be down in Tampa/Clearwater on the 25th. How's the bite? Water temp looks like its coming up. Topside 75-80 out on the water? |
christian stephen kimber (Lug)
New member
Username: Lug
Post Number: 1
Registered: 3-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 12, 2006 - 1:50 pm: | |
I was wondering if any of you guys/girls could give me some advice/tactics on your fishing styles over there.Me and my family are coming over for a holiday in Tampa and want to do some fishing inshore from boat and pier and beach.
Any idea's help welcome |
brett ha (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 28, 2005 - 9:34 am: | |
hey there just wondering can you catch permit fish in tampa.thanks |
CHARLES DAVIS (Chickdaddy23)
New member
Username: Chickdaddy23
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2005
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 17, 2005 - 10:14 am: | |
TROUT FISHING IN WEEDON IS RED HOT ON THE OUTSIDES OF THE CHANNEL WITH A LIVE SHRIMP DRIFTING IN A MOVING TIDE |
Captain Chuck MacIntyre (Captchuck)
New member
Username: Captchuck
Post Number: 6
Registered: 9-2003
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 14, 2004 - 4:39 am: | |
Vortex Charters Fishing Report
07-14-2004
Captain Chuck MacIntyre
Vortex Charters of Tampa Bay
www.vortexcharters.com
With a high-pressure system dominating our weather pattern, the light winds have allowed us runs into the Gulf 30+ miles lately.
Fishing ‘roll-offs’ at depth changes, we have found some nice schools of Red and Gag Grouper. These ‘roll-offs’ represent an area where the depth drops up to 10 feet in a hundred yard distance. By sabiking up beeliners for bait, we filleted them into strips 4 inches long. This cut bait was just what the doctor ordered, as many baits rarely reached bottom before being attacked.
We also lost a couple of fish that could not be identified, mainly because they broke the line so fast. Shark or BIG Grouper? We will never know!
Inshore, the flats are still holding Trout with most fish cooperating in the early morning hours. Once the sun comes up, the 3-4 foot depths reach a temperature of 90-94 degrees.
This heated water will cause the fish to move into deeper holes, so switching gears in the afternoon is a must.
Tight Lines!
Capt. Chuck
www.vortexcharters.com
|
saltydog (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
Rating: 
Votes: 11 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 05, 2004 - 11:20 am: | |
I end up in Florida on business usually a couple of times a year and end up jumping on a party boat if I can sneak in a day. Last time did fine in keys. In June, just went on a boat out of Johns Pass near Tampa. Whatta boat. The fishing, the crew, and just the general attitude of Hubbard's Marina people was about the worst that I've experienced.
Almost no decent fish caught, the mates and captain took my cell phone because it might have a GPS in it (did not), and then after a day of lousy fishing the mate got in my face demanding a tip.
Next time I'm in Tampa, I'd like to try another boat - prefer an open charter but a better party boatwould also work. Any recommendations?
|
Captain Chuck MacIntyre (Captchuck)
New member
Username: Captchuck
Post Number: 5
Registered: 9-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2004 - 4:27 am: | |
Vortex Charters Fishing Report
06-09-2004
Captain Chuck MacIntyre
Vortex Charters of Tampa Bay
www.vortexcharters.com
With Summer’s heat starting to set in, there’s no better time to fish than at night.
With the sun below the horizon, there are a multitude of angling opportunities, if you play your cards right!
I had a couple of college kids last Friday night that just wanted to catch a few fish and relax. We set out about 7PM with 5 dozen ‘select’ shrimp and hopes of bent rods.
The night started out slow, but these 2 managed a couple of nice Sheepshead and a couple of fish that just ran off and broke the line.
Once the moonlight took over, we set up on a dock light that was adjacent to a pass with strong tidal flow. There, we found some very hungry Seatrout, catching and releasing 12 that exceeded 15 inches in length.
Offshore, the bite was slowed somewhat by the full moons’ effects. I believe these fish can see during this phase and eat all night. When anglers show up in the morning, most Grouper have had their fill. We did catch over 20 Grouper Saturday morning, but most were too small to keep. Luckily, we battled and released 3 sharks that made for a great all-around day out.
Tight Lines!
Capt. Chuck
www.vortexcharters.com
|
Captain Chuck MacIntyre (Captchuck)
New member
Username: Captchuck
Post Number: 4
Registered: 9-2003
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - 4:41 am: | |
Vortex Charters Fishing Report
05-26-2004
Captain Chuck MacIntyre
Vortex Charters of Tampa Bay
www.vortexcharters.com
On Saturday, Winter Haven residents Telly Cardarelle, Randy Howg, and Shane Hron
hopped aboard to do some Grouper fishing. With a steady 15mph southeast wind, we rode the swells to a spot 17 miles from shore. Fishing in 54 feet, Shane was hot, getting 3 in the boat in quick succession. Telly answered next with a Red Grouper that nearly made the 20 inch minimum. After about another dozen catch and releases, Telly had one for the dinner table. With the wind picking up, we decided to head over to the South County Reef to try our luck at King Mackerel fishing.
After we jigged up a well full of bait, we set out the lines. Randy got things going first, battling a 30+ pound King that was grabbed by a Shark before it could be gaffed.
All Randy could do was watch as the Shark ate the King in one swipe, leaving Randy just the head to reel in. Shane was up next and his King was destroyed by a Barracuda.
All told, we lost 6 Kings to Sharks and ‘Cuda’s. The boys from Winter Haven evened the score by hooking and releasing a 5 foot ‘Cuda on the last pass.
(see attached picture)
Tight Lines!
Capt. Chuck
www.vortexcharters.com
|
Captain Chuck MacIntyre (Captchuck)
New member
Username: Captchuck
Post Number: 3
Registered: 9-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - 4:33 am: | |
Vortex Charters Fishing Report
03-24-2004
Captain Chuck MacIntyre
Vortex Charters of Tampa Bay
www.vortexcharters.com
With Spring upon us, it’s time to break out a pole and go fishing!
This past week, we enjoyed “Chamber of Commerce” postcard weather along with some fantastic fishing.
Inshore, the Spanish Mackerel are tearing things up! Fishing with Herb Gingold, friend Dave and their daughters Sunday, they boated more than a dozen Macks, 3 keeper Seatrout, a large Sheepshead and a 5 pound Drum.
Saturdays’ inshore trip mirrored Sundays’ as Gordon Nelson and friends Patrick and Roxanne kept themselves busy reeling in Trout after Mackerel.
Just about any pass and pier is holding these gamesters, with most fish being taken on hand-picked shrimp. In order to get the bite going, we smashed up a few dead shrimp and tossed them into the falling tide. Within minutes, we had the Macks swarming behind the boat.
Snook are also starting to move around. We hooked and lost 2 in successive trips last week. With the abundance of bait starting to show up, it won’t be long before these linesiders are prowling your favorite flat.
The word on the water has now concentrated on Kingfish, as the major push should be here any day now.
I hope to be reporting skyrocketing Kings in next weeks’ report.
Good Fishin’ to ya!
Capt. Chuck MacIntyre
www.vortexcharters.com
|
Captain Chuck MacIntyre (Captchuck)
New member
Username: Captchuck
Post Number: 2
Registered: 9-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 4:13 am: | |
Vortex Charters Fishing Report
02-25-2004
Captain Chuck MacIntyre
Vortex Charters of Tampa Bay
www.vortexcharters.com
With Spring-like weather starting to settle in and a new moon to help with the tides, fishing this past week was a good barometer for things to come.
With light winds dictating calm seas on Saturday, we fished in 60 feet of water catching numerous Gag and Red Grouper, with a couple tipping the scales at 10 pounds.
Mixed in with them were Mango Snapper, who continue to put on a strong show at the latter end of Winter. Scamp, my all-time favorite, also joined the fray, but were too small to keep. The size limit on Scamp is 16 inches.
Inshore, Trout and Sheepshead are still the headliners. The trout are hanging on the edges of area grassflats, being taken with small grub-like jigs and ‘select’ shrimp.
Ladyfish continue to spoil the bite as nearly every bait is consumed by these voracious feeders after a few Trout are landed.
The Sheepshead have been feeding heavily near the Skyway, where rockpile in 10-12 feet have provided the most action.
With scattered reports of Threadfin Herring offshore, the Spring King bite should be just weeks away!
Good Fishin’ to ya!
Capt. Chuck MacIntyre
www.vortexcharters.com
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Captain Chuck MacIntyre (Captchuck)
New member
Username: Captchuck
Post Number: 1
Registered: 9-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 08, 2004 - 5:12 am: | |
Vortex Charters Fishing Report
01-07-2004
Captain Chuck MacIntyre
Vortex Charters of Tampa Bay
www.vortexcharters.com
With warmer than average January temperatures, you would expect the Gag and Red Grouper to be excellent. But slow moving tides and a full moon dashed any hopes of filling the boat this past week. On 2 successive trips to 60 feet, we fished desperately to get 3 keepers, with only a few shorts to fill the gap between bites. Luckily, my clients bagged a couple of hogfish and Mango Snapper, making the trips somewhat worthwhile.
The inshore trips were quite the opposite. On three inshore trips, my clients kept busy catching some of the largest winter Seatrout I have seen in a long time. Three and Four pounders were the norm, with 2 fish tipping the scales at 5.5 pounds. These are not your typical year-round Trout, but the yellow-mouthed variety that invade our area as the cold sets in. We fished in residential canals using large free-lined shrimp, swithing to 4 inch DOA’s after the live bait ran out. It didn’t matter as the Trout seemed to eat everything we threw at them.
Good Fishin’ to ya!
Capt. Chuck MacIntyre
www.vortexcharters.com
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Captain Fred Kremer (Unregistered Guest)
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Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, October 25, 2003 - 4:32 am: | |
Tarpon Springs Report
All of my fishing this week was in the Tarpon Springs area. The water south of the Anclote River continues to be much clearer than to the north. The Ozona area is extremely clear with large bait schools around the various spoil islands. If you’re a live bait angler, it should be easy to fill your live well in one or two throws. Fish feeding on the bait schools can be seen slashing through them. Find the bait, you find the fish.
This week I went shallow early in the morning, fishing my usual favorite topwater baits, the 5M750 Mirrolure and any of the Top Dog series. The larger fish are in very shallow water early and are loners. Undersized trout are schooling fish, and you can stay on them for as long as you want. The larger ones that are slowly moving into the shallow flats to feed are usually by themselves. Trout are very sensitive to any handling, so if you’re not going to keep them, be sure to handle them as little as possible. I keep them in the water, get out the pliers, and release without touching them at all. This will insure a much higher survival rate. Also, large schools of jacks are all over the flats and are an exciting catch. Cobia have also been seen and caught.
DOA shrimp imitations are also very productive, either under a float or just fished close to the bottom without a float. I start by fishing two different colors to see what they prefer that day. Again, soft plastic jerkbaits are deadly on the flats fish. Reds seem to prefer something in red with gold or silver fleck, while the trout and snook seem to like the crystal or pearl colors.
November is right around the corner, and is traditionally one of the best flats fishing months of the year.
Captain Fred Kremer
Strictly Artificial Fishing Charters
www.strictlyartificial.com |
KURTUSONTHACASE (Unregistered Guest)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 9:52 am: | |
ALLS IM SAYING IS WEEDON ISLAND /RIVEREA BAY - INCOMMING TIDE AT NIGHT FREELINE SHRIP OR PIN FISH ----HOLD ON |
Captain Fred Kremer (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, October 13, 2003 - 4:47 am: | |
Upper Tampa Bay Report
All my fishing this week was in the Upper Tampa Bay, where the water is very off-color. By using scented baits and chum block, we were able to get the fish coming our way. Anchored, the chum block was deployed for about a half hour, then we drifted down the chum line using DOA Deadly Combination rigs with a rootbeer/gold fleck shrimp, which seemed to be the only color drawing strikes. White Captain Mike’s spoons in the ¼ oz. size also worked for us.
Some anglers chose to try the flyrod, and were quickly hooked up with trout and ladyfish, which provide an exciting catch on the light tackle. Seaducers in yellow w/red head as well as a Deceiver in white w/green back were deadly on trout. The ladyfish didn’t seem to have a preference and bit almost every fly tossed in their direction.
Look for the action to increase as the water temperatures fall, even slightly. Reds are schooled and prowling on the south shore of the Bay.
Next week’s report will be from the Tarpon Springs area of west-central Florida where the water is much clearer due to less runoff than in the Upper Bay.
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Captain Fred Kremer (Unregistered Guest)
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Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 27, 2003 - 5:24 am: | |
Tarpon Springs Report
This week, all my fishing was in the Tarpon Springs area, both north and south of the Anclote River. The water south of the river seems much clearer than the water north of the river mouth, although fish were caught in both directions.
The lures of choice were the DOA Deadly Combination with a root beer/gold fleck ¼ oz. shrimp, Saltwater Assassin Crystal Shad soft plastic jerkbait, DOA CAL jigs with pearl body with pink tail, and the venerable Bomber Long A in black back and silver sides. All of these lures caught fish, but the lure that consistently caught the largest fish (trout, redfish, Spanish mackerel, grouper) was the Saltwater Assassin Crystal Shad.
I was drifting in 3-4 feet with the wind and trying to stay over the best grass bottom. I like to find crab trap lines and drift the traps. The traps are baited with fish to attract the crabs, but the scent that attracts the crabs also attracts bait and fish. If you’re ever at a loss as to where to fish, my advice is to find some crab traps and start there. Do not bother the traps!!! Luckily, the trap line I was drifting was set in the same direction as the wind, so it was fairly easy to stay near them. If not, use your trolling motor to stay in the vicinity, or anchor if you don’t have an electric motor. As the day progresses, move to some deeper water and use the old chum bag trick to attract fish to you. You won’t be disappointed, and you never know what will appear in the slick.
Captain Fred Kremer
Strictly Artificial Fishing Charters
813.920.6291
www.strictlyartificial.com
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Captain Fred Kremer (Unregistered Guest)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 4:16 am: | |
Dealing With The Conditions
The water in upper Tampa Bay continues to be coffee colored due to several factors. When conditions are this way, I first of all try to find the clearest water I can. You’d be surprised at how different the visibility can be in different areas on the same flat. I drift or get on the trolling motor to find these areas. Better water clarity means more fish.
Even if you find clearer water, it’s not of the ideal variety, but there are a few tricks you can use to increase your catch. I use two main methods, sound and smell. By sound, I mean creating a disturbance which will “call” the fish to your lure. The Cajun Thunder weighted float with a DOA shrimp under it has been producing for me. I give the float a sideways pump with the rod, creating a load splash and click. The shrimp is pulled to the surface and then gently descends to the bottom, triggering strikes. I haven’t found a color of the DOA shrimp that the fish don’t like. This week we caught larger trout and redfish with this method. Just insure that you keep most of the slack out of the line before striking and be ready!
Scented lures are also a plus in limited water visibility, so combining the sound with the scented lures insures success. The fish can’t hit what they can’t see or smell, so it just makes sense that combining these two factors in your lure presentation will trigger strikes.
Fishing in west-central Florida will continue to improve with the coming of fall, and dropping water temperatures. The Gulf is still at 85 degrees, but will drop with cooler evening temperatures.
Captain Fred Kremer
Strictly Artificial Fishing Charters
www.strictlyartificial.com
813.920.6291
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Captain Fred Kremer (Unregistered Guest)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, September 07, 2003 - 7:56 am: | |
Pick A Pass
The best bet right now seems to be the passes between the barrier islands in the Gulf. Either tide seems to work, and Spanish mackerel are abundant in these areas. With nothing much going on the flats, except smallish seatrout, the passes can provide almost constant action for these toothy critters.
There are several fishing techniques that work, and I’m sure there are others that can be successful. For the bait fisherman, anchor your boat, toss over the chum block in a mesh bag and drift your live baits back into the chum slick. Spanish mackerel respond very quickly to the smell, seeking a meal. Most of the baitfish on the flats seem to be on the smallish side, but the mackerel don’t seem to mind. Use a mono or fluorocarbon leader and a long shank hook to prevent cutoffs.
For those into lure fishing, my favorite for Spanish mackerel is the #00 Clark spoon, which is a diamond shaped lure with a red bead at the front which I troll behind the boat. The #00 is a very small spoon which, I think, resembles a glass minnow to the fish. You can vary the size of the spoon, and most will work. I’ve even used a regular plastic soda straw cut into about a two inch section, threaded onto the leader and then attach a small treble hook. This is a really inexpensive lure you can create that seems to work as well as the spoons. My favorite soda straws are the white ones with red stripes.
Vary the speed of the boat, and add weight to get the lures down a bit if you’re not getting any strikes.
Captain Fred Kremer
Strictly Artificial Fishing Charters
www.strictlyartificial.com
813.920.6291 |
Captain Fred Kremer (Unregistered Guest)
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Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 6:20 am: | |
Try Different Presentation Techniques
Most of my fishing this week was in the vicinity of Weedon Island, chasing redfish there. The water is still very off color, making fishing a bit more difficult using lures. We never did get the redfish going, but the trout were there, although most were below the slot limit. They did make for nice outings, though.
We started out fishing DOA shrimp lures under a Cajun Thunder, which is the larger, weighted version of the Equalizer made by Precision Tackle. This rig is fished by doing sharp pulls on the rod, resulting in a popping action on top of the water. I attach the lure to the float with about 18 to 24 inches of fluorocarbon leader. The lure is pulled towards the surface, then settles to the bottom. The fish are attracted to the popping sound, and see the shrimp or other lure diving towards the grass. You can use typical jigs under the Cajun Thunder or just about any subsurface lure. I like the DOA shrimp imitations in various colors. The glow and fluorescent orange do well for me. When the fish hit the lure, the Cajun Thunder float goes under, and all you have to do is pull. We caught trout and ladyfish with this rig.
I then switched to fishing jigs with pearl bodies w/red or pink tails in the typical jigging fashion, ie, the yo-yo jig fishing method, with no hits. I knew that the pearl bodies were the size and color of the baitfish I had seen, and couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working. I tried moving it fast, slow, but then tried just swimming it along on top of the grass. Wham! Too fast and it rode too high in the water to get bit, too slow and it caught in the grass. But, when it was retrieved with absolutely no jigging motion just above the grass, it produced a lot of trout. The lesson is to try different retrieve techniques to see what will work. Don’t just stay with what you’ve done in the past, it might not work this time.
Very early in the mornings, I had success using Bagley’s Finger Mullet topwater lures and Mirrolure 5M750’s.
Captain Fred Kremer
Strictly Artificial Fishing Charters
www.strictlyartificial.com
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Capt. Fred Kremer (Unregistered Guest)
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Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 25, 2003 - 7:57 am: | |
Early Morning Bite
This week’s fishing was concentrated in the Tarpon Springs area, getting on an early morning topwater bite, then, as the sun gets higher, going to subsurface lures. My favorite lures all did well on trout, redfish, snook and even grouper on the flats. It seemed that the bigger fish were in very shallow water, very early in the day.
If anglers are willing, I like to get them out of the boat to do some wade fishing. It’s amazing how close you can get to fish when you’re afoot, rather than presenting a higher profile in a boat. Not everyone is interested in this type of fishing, and I respect that, but those that do really enjoy it. And, if they don’t have a boat back home, it’s a technique they can do when the fishing bug hits.
Some of my favorite topwater lures are the 5M Mirrolure series in different colors. The “5 series” is a double prop lure, three treble hooks, four inches long, and creates quite a commotion on top. This lure can call fish from quite a distance, when they come to investigate what’s going on with all that noise. My all-time favorite is the “750” color, which hardly resembles any type of fish I’ve ever seen! It has an orange belly, green fluorescent sides and a black top. This lure has been around a long time, but still produces more than any other I’ve ever used. I usually take off the middle treble hook, and others, so I’ve heard, take off the front propeller. I leave it on. Other colors I like in this lure are the 11 and 41 colors. The 11 color is white with a red head, and the 41 is silver/white with a black back, seemingly resembling a finger mullet. This type of lure also comes in a smaller size, the 21M, which is three inches long with two treble hooks. It comes in all the above colors, too.
As the sun gets higher, the topwater bite usually subsides, and that’s when I go to the subsurface lures, mostly the Exude and Bass Assassin (Saltwater), which are soft, plastic jerkbaits. These are exception redfish lures, and it seems like all fish like them. I use the light colors when it’s sunny, and the darker colors when it’s cloudy. The action on these is very erratic, resembling a wounded baitfish, almost irresistible!
Captain Fred Kremer
Strictly Artificial Fishing Charters
www.strictlyartificial.com
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Captain Fred Kremer (Unregistered Guest)
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Votes: 3 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 16, 2003 - 3:49 am: | |
Rainy Weather, Murky Water
Well, west-central Florida has had its share of rain for what seems like weeks. With the influx of all this fresh water, the water on most coastal flats is the color of coffee with cream. This, plus the red tide on the coast has dampened some of our fishing opportunities. A friend of mine, commenting on the darkened water, said that all it means is that it will be more difficult for the “rookies” to catch fish. I guess he meant that those who don’t know murky water fishing techniques will not fare well.
What to do when the water isn’t of the clear variety? I rely heavily on the scented lures. My favorite is the Exude, by Mister Twister. They have a saltwater series that seems to work best for me. Their soft, plastic baits emit a natural scent trail that the fish can find and follow. Exude isn’t the only scented lure on the market, but I’ve had my best luck with them.
Since the water is stained, the ability of the fish to actually see a lure from any distance is, of course, very limited. So, go to the scented lures and move them in contact with the bottom very slowly. You don’t want to move it quickly like you might in clearer water. Leave a scent trail for them to follow and make sure to slow down, so when they find it, it’s in their strike window for a long period of time. I’ll actually let the scented baits sit motionless on the bottom at times. I tend to go with the darker colors in the murky water. You’ll be amazed at how many strikes you’ll get when it’s not moving at all.
Captain Fred Kremer
Strictly Artificial Fishing Charters
www.strictlyartificial.com
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Capt. Dan Hicks
Unregistered guest
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, December 03, 2002 - 9:28 pm: | |
Subject: Report
December fishing can be hot, if you’re at the right place at the right time.
Most flats species are on fire and as I write these words my mind begins to wander with anticipation of what will come during our next trip, will that big cobia show up again when there’s a rod ready? What will we catch tomorrow? Just a few of the reasons we like to fish.
As this article makes its way to paper the Snook are feeding aggressively as they follow their migratory path to the backwater areas and rivers, feeding on just about anything that they think they can catch and swallow. Many are still on the flats; being fashionably late in the arrival to their coldwater haunts and others as proven through time are always early for the party and are co-inhabiting the nearly freshwaters of our local rivers and tributaries.
Redfish are being caught in fair numbers around some of the areas docks and residential canals; most of the large schools have dissipated by now on our end of the bay and will be more commonly caught while snook fishing.
Cobia are thick on the flats right now and are being taken on live pinfish and imitation eels as well as a variety of slow sinking mirrolure plugs while sight casting to the shark looking bruisers of the shallows. Most are being targeted by looking along the many shoals and sandbars along our vast area shorelines.
Speckled Trout are being consistently caught around the cleaner flats with some tidal movement on both live bait and a variety of artificials including the ever popular tandem rigs (two jig heads tied in line with some form of grub or curly tail) while worked over depths of three to eight feet. With the larger trout being similar to snook in their feeding habits most will be found in shallower waters around some type of current break and that could be anything, sandbars, riprap shorelines and rock piles will hold a large portion of the toothy gamesters.
Their brethren the silver trout have been schooling up in deep water haunts such as ship turning basins like the one at the inflow of the Weedon island power plant, the channel leading from the Gandy launch area and the Westinghouse basin to name a few.
The Gag Grouper bite is hot on the tide one hour before and after slack water and one need not travel to the skyway area to produce fish, there are various hidey-holes scattered along the entire length of the shipping channel along both sides of the Gandy area including the port and it’s shallower surrounding waters.
Pompano action has been unusually hot as of late and will begin to subside as waters begin to cool.
Bait has been an easy target as we’ve had only light cold fronts so far.
Expect to find bait headed for deeper waters as the water temperature begins to drop.
Look around the big bridges for bait in the lights pre-dawn or chum with golf ball sized lumps to allow it to sink and bring the bait from the deeper water during daylight hours.
Best of the rest:
For the best shot at Gag Grouper fishing time you trips with the tides try to be ready to fish one hour before and one hour after the slack and within the bay it’s only a short run from any area to potential grouper bottom. Trolling will take it’s fair share of fish and downriggers are the most controlled method but also the most expensive, planers will work and take some getting used to but once you have figured out the set-up you can try a variety of spoons and plugs (shallow lipped).
Some anglers are fans of large lipped diving plugs alone without the planer; all will work if you’re in the right place at the right time.
Expect to catch large trout in shallower water, take a real close look at the outside edges of Weedon island on lower tide stages and you should be amply rewarded with some trophy class fish. And while you out try a power plant for sharks and cobia, and the same rules apply look at the shoals and areas of tidal disturbance and will find fish hugging the contours. If you spend enough time at some of them you will find sizeable quantities of permit and pompano that will readily take a doc’s goofy jig or piece of yellow/chartreuse jig tail on a quarter ounce head.
Backwater holes and dark mud bottom will hold snook by the numbers but getting them to eat however will be a different story, some times the most effective way to entice a strike will be to use artificial baits such as the DOA shrimp in a glow color to entice a reaction strike. Using the famed and patented ” Ramil twitch” which has produced in three local tournaments is guaranteed to produce results and make a believer out of any fisherman worth his salt. HO HO Whoa, hold on tight and Merry Christmas.
www.fish-tale.com
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Capt. John Sackett
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2001 - 9:03 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
(877) 269-FISH Toll Free Reservations |
Capt Dan Hicks
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 25, 2001 - 9:24 pm: | |
Subject: fishing report
Oh boy! Fishing is finally returning to normal and that goes for catching as well.
Back are the days of large quantities of fish to eagerly await your baits.
If you and your tackle have taken a break for the summer it’s time to get things in order again. Check your rods and guides as well as re-spool your reels with fresh line, I prefer 10-20 lb test power-pro as it wears longer is stronger and more sensitive than any mono out there and has no ill effects on my tackle. Beware of the tension on your drags as you can overload a rods capacity, however if you are fishing around structure there is nothing better. Its abrasion resistance is incredible.
Once every thing is in order it’s time to hit the water as most of the shorelines around Tampa bay are teaming with fish at one tide or another.
Redfish are well into their “push” and should be a fairly common catch. Areas such as Weedon Island, Fourth Street and Culbreath Isles are producing their fair share of these bronze copper colored gamesters and most are found milling around with schools of mullet in various open salt and pepper grassy areas as well smaller more isolated backcountry bays and are feeding on small crustaceans and bait fish such as ?? Mullet, pinfish and whitebait. Shrimp can be excellent redfish bait if you can stand the pinfish pecking at and killing them constantly. But seem better suited to cooler climate fishing at different times of the year.
These areas are consistently producing large numbers of a variety of species and will continue to do so for the remainder of the year.
Look for Snook to be feeding best along shorelines with an abundance of patchy grass while resting in the potholes focused on letting the tide bring unsuspecting morsels to them for a quick and easy meal.
Trout will begin to become more consistent in the three to five foot depths and as they say the best bet is to “match the hatch” small pinfish and whitebaits can be outstanding, however you will have the ability to cover a larger area of water with artificial baits.
Snapper are everywhere! Just about any structure in Tampa Bay has a resident population of Snapper and your absolute best bet to fool them is whitebait on the small side coupled with 2 to 3 ft of 25 to 30lb fluorocarbon leader with a small yet sharp hook in the range of # 1- # 4 and using only enough lead to get on the bottom and hold. No room for steel leaders here as snapper seem to have very good eyesight.
Anchor uptide and chum with live and cut greenies to sweeten the deal and fire a bait down and get ready. Use your imagination; almost any structure; rocks, docks, seawalls and bridges are all productive with a good tide.
Cobia are still on the markers in good numbers but most of them are a little beat-up as just about every one has bounce everything in their arsenal off the tops on their heads in an attempt to entice a bite.
Pinfish, greenies and artificial baits will al work and you will have a greater chance at hooking them when keeping your distance from the markers while making your presentation.
The water temps are still a little warm so make sure your there on the best of moving tides as that is when the action will be the best, Live bait will certainly speed things up a notch in most areas.
There are gobs of bait in the bay; almost all of the Gandy area flats are loaded with plenty of useable bait.
Using an 8 to 10 ft. net thrown properly with a little jack mackerel, cornmeal and menhaden oil goes a long way and makes quick work of the gathering process saving time while trying to bait up for the day.
Gandy Bridge anglers have fair tidal height and flow on the weekend of the 8th and 9th in the early morning as well as the weekend of the 22nd.
So get those baits loaded up early and begin your journey to your favorite spot and make you best presentation.
For those of you who enjoy artificial baits, get out early and beat the crowds as your best chances to catch fish are going to be before the flats have been marauded and most of the fish spooked, they’re quite weary as it is without the weekend crowds running the over especially if you are trying to “fool” them with a plastic creation.
Don’t forget the docks as they are going to hold fish just about all year long (warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer) a mix of the above baits will produce fish at a variety of locations. Some will produce better than others and unfortunately there is only one way to distinguish the great docks from the not so great docks, Time on the water and nothing else short of someone telling you which ones are productive will provide you with the information you need.
www.tampabayangler.com/fishtalescharterservice.htm
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Capt. Sergio Atanes
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2001 - 10:22 pm: | |
Subject: Tampa Bay Fishing Report
Tampa Bay Fishing Report
Here a few tips on where to fish after the rains, look for runoff where snook and reds will concentrate. Her a few hot spots to get you started. Redfish Creek at Port Manatee, Salt Creek just before the bend starts, oyster bar east of the Weedon Island Pier.
Mackerel will hang just outside of the Skyway Bridge for a few day until rain water empties, best bet look for small grouper around the ships channel makers 1 and 2, mangroves are a sure bet at the start of outgoing tide. Good fishing and tight lines.
Capt. Sergio Atanes
Cell (727) 420-3039
Night (813) 973-7132
www.reelfishy.com |
Capt. Dan Hicks
Unregistered guest
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2001 - 6:51 pm: | |
Subject: August fishing report
If keeping cool is on your agenda this month you may be in luck. The nighttime bite has been strong and will continue into the months of August and September.
There are many areas in the Gandy bridge region that have been producing numbers of fish at night while fishing the lighted docks. Culbreath isles, Mariner, Snell isle, and Coffeepot to name a few have been some of the most productive on a good moving tide.
Choice baits have been live whitebaits and pinfish as well as a few artificial baits such as the D.O.A. glow and natural shrimp, Bubba’s Jigs shad tails and sinking Mirrolures such as the 52MR 18 and 21.
If angling during daylight hours is your thing get an early start if it’s consistent action you want. Early a.m. incoming tides have been the most productive. Tide charts with moon phases may be conveniently found within the covers of this magazine.
Weedon island and 4th street bound anglers have been catching the big three Snook, Trout and Redfish while using same baits listed above with live white bait the number one choice for quantity’s of fish. More experienced anglers may choose to use artificial baits to make the most of the early bite (no valuable time spent looking for and netting bait.)
Another bait option to consider during those times when the grass is everywhere you want to fish would be many of the soft “jerkbaits” made by many manufacturers rigged “weed less” with a worm hook. They come in a variety of baitfish imitating colors and sizes.
Tarpon have scattered through the bay and will begin to gather in the backwater and upper bay areas very soon and will require less hunting to get a shot at a feeding fish.
Redfish have begun to school in some of their more usual haunts, look for areas of patchy grass and good tidal flow to hold these dogged fighters and with a little patience and the right bait and presentation you may find the “tug” you have been looking for.
Snook have been and will remain in areas that also present good tidal flow, structure and food. Areas such as the “mud hole” at Weedon Island can be productive
Areas such as the big bridges spanning the bay area waters, most of the spawning activity will come to an end soon, however the fish will remain in a summer pattern for some time.
Numbers of smaller and medium sized fish can be found in shallower waters located on area grass flats and shorelines as well as nearby oyster bars, getting them to cooperate will require moving water and the correct baits and presentations.
Trout can be found over the deeper area grass flats ranging from 3-10 feet deep. Concentrating your efforts in areas of clean water and good tidal movement will greatly improve you catch ratio regardless of which bait you choose to use. All of the above baits will work well when tossed to the edges of the pot holes and sandy areas as the fish will spend a great deal of their time waiting for an easy meal to happen by.
Cobia have been on the various channel and range markers throughout the bay area and have been eating the usual baits such as artificial eels ,6-8 “ curly tails and just about any thing live such as greenies and pinfish.
As usual, getting them off the marker is the hard part. Stout tackle with the appropriate line and leader(25 to 30 lb line with 40 to 60 lb leader) are in tall order here where the name of the game is stop’em or pop’em !
P.s. Buy good strong high quality hooks. I’ve had these fish straighten some hooks like a paperclip when applying this much pressure!
The big Drum can still be located on the bridges and can more readily be found on or near the slack tides.
Choice baits include crabs and flat-sided artificial baits such as Rattletraps in ¾ oz. Chrome paired with fairly stout tackle 20-40 lb gear.
Pompano fishing has been very consistent as of late fishing the bridge pilings near the bottom with doc’s goofy jigs and fiddler crabs weighted with a split shot or two to get it down.
What to look for:
Fishing patterns will remain much the same as the month of July. The water will continue to stay very warm and the best bite will continue to be early a.m. or evening / nighttime.
Cobia will continue to be found on area channel markers and other structure.
If you are after cobia try your luck on the same markers for tripletail as well. They generally take a live greenback suspended three to four feet below a cork.
Tarpon can and will be found in some areas of the bay, look around the east and west side in water depths of 12 to 20 feet and deploy fresh shad, mullet or ladyfish for best chances.
If you were able to locate and pin down the snook pattern last month you will be on target again as these fish will continue to stay in the same local as in the previous months.
Baits and feeding habits should not change. Until the middle of September or October
Snapper will continue to feed over the artificial reefs as well as other structures in Tampa Bay and as the months before white bait will be the bait to have as well as a chum block to get’em going.
Redfish should be in full swing and the largest schools of the year should start to show.
Keep your eyes open for “pushing” or moving water on some of your favorite grass flats.
If you have a well full of bait you can chum them into a feed at your boat where silence is golden(try to limit the amount of deck noise)and they will stay until the tide forces them out or you spook them.
Trout will continue to hold in water ranging three to six feet deep with potholes located in various areas.
Capt. Dan Hicks / Fishtales Charter services Inc. 813-902-0715 or 813-361-7383
www.Tampabayangler.com/fishtalescharterservice.htm
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Capt. Dan Hicks
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2001 - 9:01 pm: | |
Subject: Fishing report ,Tampa Bay
The month of July is hot! And planning your trips early in the morning or late in the afternoon will give most anglers the best shot at scoring with a variety of species in the Gandy bridge region.
These are the months memories are created, where anything including the unexpected can happen at any given time.
Redfish and Snook have been mixed in areas that frequently hold mullet. The redfish are continuously showing signs of more dependable feeding habits and as with most of the other flats species whitebait or greenbacks have proven to be the bait of choice.
Snook have continued to be active in the same areas as the summer pattern is in full swing and will continue for the next few months. And as always the typical ingredients are tidal flow plus structure, shade or contour changes in bottom and food source equals snook and lots of them.
Trout have been more commonly found on area grass flats from three to six feet deep, and the feed has been best early and late with good water flow. The successful angler may choose to use both live and artificial baits. The new bubba’s jigs jerk bait tails have had a great deal of success on the early morning trout bite as well as the Mirrolure pins color catch 2000. These or any similar bait should produce excellent results.
The mackerel are here in mass as usual for this time of year and are feeding well on the incoming tides. Best on live baits during periods of strong tidal flow. Employ a short piece of wire to limit the amount of cut off fish and try not to use any chrome or shiny hardware to join line to leader as they will commonly bite any thing flashy when really wound up and on the feed causing your line and leader to unexpectedly part themselves at the most inopportune times .Use light drag settings to prevent pulling hooks as well as add a little sport to the game.
Cobia have made the push to the cans and markers of the bay, there are still a few on the flats during the cooler times of the day and you may see the occasional lost one however the most consistent action will be on the channel and range markers in the bay from six to thirty feet of water as well as over wrecks and reefs scattered throughout the area. Best offerings include pinfish and greenies as well as large curly tails 6-8” and eel imitations.
Try to keep your distance from the structure and lead the fish as it makes it’s way around and chances of a hookup are dramatically increased.
As always the summer ritual of tarpon fishing continues around area bridges and shoals whether day or night on a variety of baits such as shad, threadfins, pinfish, mullet, ladyfish or any of the baits that imitate any of the above. The best feed as of late has come on the slower tides by casting or drifting baits into the shadow lines and keeping your baits there for as long a period as possible. Bridge bound anglers can fish for tarpon with measured success from the Gandy bridge catwalks during evening hours using the same techniques and baits.
Big black drum are eating crabs as well as three quarter ounce rattletraps in chrome and shrimp if presented softly and allowed to flutter down (sink on their own). You will typically find drum feeding along the top to middle edge of bridge pilings on slack tides.
If you have never caught a 30 to 40 pound black drum your missing out and should really try it, besides what else are you going to do on a slack tide?
Look for the big fish tailing next to the pilings and present the bait in the vicinity and HOLD ON!
In the weeks to come you should see bait become more plentiful and abundant as well as the size of redfish schools, tarpon will typically become a little more scattered but will still be around in numbers large enough to target.
Remember snook season closure remains until the end of August, but what a fun fish to catch and release.
Some great trips in July can be had at night while fishing residential docks with some type of lighting for snook, trout and redfish. Big shrimp and artificial baits are great at night under the docks, not to mention its twenty degrees cooler and you don’t need sunscreen!
Spanish mackerel should hang around for a while and continue to feed consistently with the addition of a chum block to get them cranked up!
Look near some of your favorite channel markers and artificial reefs as well as any structure or sandbar that causes some sort of change in the way water flows over or around it and you shall be rewarded.
Take a camera to record those catches! For sure there will be memories made.
Capt. Dan Hicks
Fishtales Charter Services Inc.
813-902-0715 or 813-361-7383
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Capt. Sergio Atanes
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 15, 2001 - 1:38 am: | |
Subject: TAMPA BAY INSHORE FISHING REPORT
TAMPA BAY INSHORE FISHING REPORT
Weedon Island fishermen will be glad to hear the snook have turned on, some above average redfish have been caught on the oyster bar just north of Christmas Pass. Believe it or not he best bait has been select shrimp free lined on light leader no more than 20 pound test.
Coffeepot Bayou has produced some nice cobia along the 5 foot bar on a outgoing tide, along with some keeper trout.
Mackerel have been active just off Pinellas Point outside the southern tip of the sandbar area.
Good fishing and tight lines.
Capt. Sergio Atanes
atanes@msn.com
www.reelfishy.com
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Capt. John Sackett
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 06, 2001 - 11:31 pm: | |
Subject: the latest action from www.AnglingAdventure.com
It just keeps getting better and better!!!
It doesn’t seem to matter what type of fishing you like to do, right now would be a good time to get out and do it! Up and down the West Central coast of Florida, whether you want to fish inshore, or offshore, try and get out to do it soon. In fact rather than try and put a whole lot of effort into my writing here, we’ve got soooooo much to report on, I’ll try and do here it in as brief a style as possible.
Where do I start?
The obvious place would be with the tarpon that are preoccupying a lot of our thoughts right now, but there are so many other fish out there to entertain us that I need to cover a lot of ground in this report. Basically, the kingfish are a little past their peak offshore, but the snapper and grouper action has been fine and the A.J.’s and dolphin are strong options as well. If you head offshore right now, chance are still good that you’ll bump into a few cobia and if the jewfish will let you get them all the way to the boat, you should consider yourself doubly lucky. From the nearshore waters all the way up onto the flats tarpon are of course, the main attraction, but certainly not the only game in town! You can choose to hunt some permit right now, or if your are looking for some of the hottest action around, get yourself in on some of our catch and release snook action.
My partners are way busy from South to North…
Like I said above, rather than try and get real descriptive with what it’s like to fish around here right now, I’m just going to try and give you some bullet points as my partners have reported it to me.
Down in the Boca Grande area Captains Mike Wise and Billy Nobles are as Billy puts it, “burning them down”! While both of them are busy as all get out doing the tarpon dance with clients both in, and around the pass, Mike has given me more material to write about than I can possibly cover here! To summarize without giving a lot of detail I’d say, tarpon, tarpon, tarpon, shark, tarpon, would just about cover it, but then again there are a lot of other fish there too. Mike’s action has included some cool cobia action up inside of Charlotte Harbor itself and some notable tripletail bites too. The notable thing about the tripletail that have been hanging around one specific cobia hole wasn’t the fact that Mike landed a pair of 7 pound brutes, but the fact that he landed one fish that was bigger than those two combined. Oh yeah, we’re talking about a 16 pound tripletail! Want more than the tripletail, how ‘bout snook so big that he had empty his pockets and jump overboard “Jose Wejebe style” and follow a fish through the legs of a dock in the heat of the battle?! Okay, if that’s not enough I’ll go back to the tarpon thing. After all, tarpon are king at this point in the spring, especially in Boca Grande. While fishing the pass is very different than fishing tarpon up on clear and shallow flats, the experience of being in Boca Grande Pass right now is something that everyone needs to experience, and is one of the best chances you’ll ever have for landing multiple fish in a single charter. When the bite is on down there, it can be incredible.
Capt. Chris Seger out of Sarasota has been busy running both inshore and offshore trips for a while now. The last couple of weeks on his 16 foot Talon flats boat he’s had everything from 150 pound tarpon to tons of snook come over the rail. One of the coolest aspects of Chris’ action is the fact that he’s the first guide on the team to have reported boating a triple digit tarpon on fly tackle, and that his snook totals are steadily into the dozens right up along his favorite sandy beaches. Hmmm, what to do? Cast one way to the snook, or look over your shoulder and cast to the pods of tarpon cruising past… What a decision to have to make! Offshore anglers aboard Chris’ big 32 foot Merrill Stevens sportfish have been equally as busy. Some days it’ll be the A.J.’s slamming every bait you toss, while other days around this full moon period, it’ll be the 4-7 pound snapper coming up and swiping your baits just below the surface. If you get your bait deep enough, don’t be surprised if the grouper decide to snarf your bait, or if you end up hooking into a “keeper” sized cobia. As much as you never know what’s gonna take your bait though, those big snapper have got to be the stars of the show. Then again, who can argue with fresh snapper at supper time too?
Just a little further North in the waters off Bradenton Capt. Steve Barron’s highlights have included days like the one he had with one of his favorite repeat clients, Chris Arendt, and Chris’ guest Doc Serkia. It was just one of those days, a 31 inch snook, a 33 inch snook, and then a 34 inch snook. Oh yeah, then there were the two 120 pound tarpon they boated too! One of the most amazing aspects of all these fish was the fact that the two tarpon they boated fought for as long as the one Steve boated with customers the week before. You see these fish went well over an hour (one went an hour and twenty minutes) battling Steve’s clients on 20-30 pound spinning tackle, while the week before he boated a nearly identical fish with his customers on a 12 pound test snook outfit with a 1/0 hook!!! Go figure.
Capt. Jason Ramsey has been doing the tarpon dance all over the place as well in addition to some great snookin’, but his biggest diversion from this “usual” action has come in the form of jewfish. It seems that somehow, some way, Jason’s clients have managed to boat three of these monster size members of the grouper family over just the last couple of weeks. Now when I say, “monster size” I mean it. Take into consideration that one of them went about 50-60 pounds, one went into the 150 bracket, and one was somewhere above 250! Add to all of that the fact that the biggest fish was landed on a 30 pound test G.Loomis spinning rod and you have the makings of an awesome fishing accomplishment. Aside from all of that though, one of the things that we do on the water that gives us the greatest sense of accomplishment has to be getting an angler his or her first tarpon, and that’s exactly what Jason just did today with one of his favorite repeat clients, Ted Watson from the Bayer Corporation. Congratulations Ted on boating an awesome fish in the 150 plus pound bracket. I can’t wait to see the photos!
Capt. Brian Kisluk, like many of us wears the title of “tarpon addict” and this week he too was getting a fix for his addiction. In Brian’s case he had a three fish boated kind of day just this week while fishing with Mike Turbin and his buddy Pete Fulmer. Now this wasn’t one of those every bait you toss get’s eaten kind of day, this was a classic case of paying your dues! I can vouch for the fact that we are far less profitable around here once the tarpon migrate out to the flats (especially with fuel costs going nuts!), because there are a lot of days that require a whole lot of “hunting” before the “fishing” really gets good. Well, when Mike and Pete fished with Brian, it was a good thing that they were as patient as they were. After boarding Brian’s Mercury powered C-Hawk just as the son was touching the horizon that morning, they searched and they searched. By 11:30 they still hadn’t even touched a rod. Then after covering water all the way from Egmont Key to New Pass down in Sarasota not once, but twice, they finally got on some “happy” fish. Needless to say, all that traveling finally paid-off with 3 fish boated over the last three hours of their trip! Congrats guys on a great trip.
Last, but certainly not least, Capt. Sam Kimball out of Annie’s Bait and Tackle in Cortez took a little time off from the snapper, kingfish kind of offshore action that he specializes in, and he did a little tarpon fishing too. Well, when I say he took a “little” time off, I guess that would be an understatement. You see he had a party of 5 anglers on one day last week when they hooked up with a monster tarpon by anybody’s definition. How monstrous you ask? How about the fact that the “lucky” angler that hooked up stood toe to fin with the beast for the first four hours of the battle without any assistance, or the fact that all four of his buddies took their turns trying to tire the big fish for the next 2 ½ hours after that! We’re talking about a fish that kept unbelievable pressure on a 30 pound Crowder spinning rod for 6 ½ hours! Time is however your enemy when fighting tarpon, so despite a truly heroic effort, and a really, really big hammerhead, they never had the challenge, or the pleasure of boating the big silver king for their Kodak moment. Any way you look at it though, Capt. Sam and those guys certainly waged what so far, has to be the battle of the year!
Get in touch with us soon!
Well, I hope that gives you some idea of the world-class action we’ve got going on right now. If you’d like to book a trip that you’ll not soon forget come and visit my website http://www.AnglingAdventure.com and we’ll get you hooked-up! Either way, we’ll be out there to let you know what’s going on.
Like my friend Capt. Mark always said,
Catch ‘em up!
Capt. John Sackett
Toll Free Reservation Line (877) 269-FISH (3474)
Anytime Number (941) 920-4891
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Capt. Jason Ramsey
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 30, 2001 - 10:42 pm: | |
Subject: It's time to do the "Tarpon Dance"
Life’s a b—ch! (that’s beach of course)
As is quickly becoming the norm around here, I’m going to apologize once again for the delay in getting this report updated. I guess somehow I need to stop trying to put so much effort into each report, and instead try to make them a little more brief, but a lot more frequent. Anyway, the past few weeks have been full of action so I’m gonna try to run through some of it here as quickly as I can.
If you haven’t done it yet, let’s do the tarpon dance…
Just like I wrote in my last report, there is still a lot of great snookin’ to be done around here, but as an admitted “tarpon addict” it’s been real tough to get excited about the linesiders lately! If it is snook you are looking for, the good news is that you won’t have to look too hard. You can find them almost everywhere right now from the rivers all the way out to the Gulf. Pass and beach fishing for snook is a “summer” type of thing traditionally, but I can tell you firsthand that the fish are already there.
How do I know the snook are all the way out the passes already? Because that’s where I travel almost every morning now in search of silver. Silver kings that is. If you looked at your calendar and read a report back around the middle of May, you’d have been reading about fishing for tarpon in the deeper waters within Tampa Bay itself. What can I tell you, traditionally there are a ton of big fish making their way out to the big sandflats just off the beaches within the first week of May, but this season has been a little different. Tarpon season started with a bang back at the end of February and we had a great March, but the winds that blew and the fronts that passed continually toward the end April and into the beginning of May, really put the brakes on our tarpon migration. Thanks goodness for the fish up inside the bay! By mid May the winds were finally co-operating again and the fish were slowly headed closer and closer to the mouth of the bay. The fish that we were hooking up inside the bay were getting a little more infrequent, but the cool news was that the fish still there were huge! In back to back to back days, my partner Capt. John Sackett and I managed fish well over 150 pounds, and had at least two that weren’t much shy of 200.
The tale of just a few trips…
The big fish parade got going on one of the days that I fished with Ward Simpson and his two sons. We fished up in the bay around some of our favorite structure that morning, but given the reluctance the fish were showing relative to eating our baits, I decided that we’d make a move. I pointed my Hydra-Sports toward a deeper ledge that runs alongside one of our big flats where we had a good trout bite a couple day earlier and boy, what a great call! We were on the anchor less five minutes and one of the first baits we tossed got absolutely slammed! We were off to the races. After the battle my partner called and asked if I had seen many fish rolling in the area, but all I could do was reply, “heck, we weren’t there long enough to notice”. Anyway, this fish was HUGE and it proceeded to drag my Hydra-Sports from just off Rattlesnake Key clear across the shipping channel in Tampa Bay and nearly across to Egmont Key. This was undoubtedly one of the biggest fish we’ve landed in the last four years, but even at that size I never expected it could drag us that far. This was a testament to the need for serious tackle when you pursue serious fish. To date I’ve had really good luck with my Penn Powergraph reels, matched up with my 8 foot G.Loomis Surf series rods.
Next day it was time to try something just a little different, but no less taxing on the equipment. Give calm winds that morning, I decided that a run out to one of my favorite wrecks was in order, so off we went. We anchored up, started tossing some chum out on the water and BAM! The fish were there, and they were extremely co-operative. We started with 4 or 5 really nice sharks in the 4-6 foot bracket, then the Spanish mackerel found their way to us, and finally the cobia showed up. We did the catch and release thing with a whole bunch of fish before I decided to see if there was something even larger to play with below the boat. I hooked one of the aforementioned mackerel on one of those same 30 pound G.Loomis tarpon rods and dropped it right down beneath the boat. One minute the “bait” is wiggling nicely, the next it just gets heavy and heads straight to the bottom. Sure enough the jewfish have taken up there summer residence. Well after having at least a couple of our big “baits meet the same demise, and after having battled dozens of these huge fish on much heavier gear, we figured it was time to get back to targeting fish we could realistically land. So back to the cobes etc.. Two nice 35-38 inchers came aboard, another was hooked, and all of a sudden as the cobia swam bright beside the boat… KERSPLASH! A huge boil of water erupted right at the surface as a 2250-300 pound jewfish came up and snarfed the 15 pound fish in one big gulp! Now since we using tarpon size spinning gear I of course, held absolutely no hope of actually fighting this fish for very long, but despite all our past failures on tackle much heavier, Ward’s son battled this fish back to the surface after each and every dive it made. After 30 minutes passed, I still thought it was an exercise in futility, but kept watching with interest. After 45 minutes passed, I was starting to think that there was a remote possibility that we’d actually beat this monster. Well sure enough, I stood in total disbelief as we neared the one hour mark and I slipped my lipgaff into the giant’s mouth. This was an accomplishment unlike anything I have seen, and it definitely deserves “catch of the week” status. Drop an e-mail to me at capt@fishtheflats.com titled “Jewfish” and I’ll return it with a photo of this incredible (especially on light tackle) fish.
While there are very few things that could top the action I had with Ward and his sons, the action on Friday of that week was notable as well. This time not as much for the size of the fish (although the tarpon my partner John did that morning with his client was in the 150 pound bracket), it was for where we were catching them! Sure monster size fish are awesome anywhere you find them, but the Friday before last was the first day that we elected to leave the deeper water within Tampa Bay itself, forgo the opportunity along the flats inside the bay, and head all the way to the big sand flats just outside the passes and into the Gulf. Like I’ve written here before, we don’t necessarily catch more tarpon out on those sand flats than we do in the deeper waters of the bay, but the added thrill you get when you can watch huge pods of trophy fish swimming in crystal clear, shallow water, is just out of this world! On that day I had the great pleasure of fishing with Jay Grubbs from Staff Leasing here in Bradenton, and after spending the morning hours having very little luck up inside the bay, we decided to burn a little gas and go do some exploratory work along Anna Maria Island and Longboat Key. Needless to say, I’m glad we did. Not only did we manage to hook three silver kings that afternoon, but we had one that took us for better than a two hour tour. This fish did exactly what a lot of the bigger fish do in the Gulf, he swam amongst his pod for a while as if he didn’t know he was hooked, then he just headed off straight to the West! Almost tragically though, as his path took us about 2 ½ or 3 miles into deeper water, it also took us into danger’s way. Danger of course for a tarpon usually comes in the form of either hammerhead, or bull sharks. Fortunately for our tarpon this particular hammerhead really didn’t like the sound and commotion that my 175 horse Johnson was making above his head!
Looking ahead…
The trips I talked about above, as well as those days since with Greg Glantz and his architect Alan, the Miselis party, and even the Ziemers were pretty indicative of what you can expect right now. With the tarpon already out on the beaches, you can find them in more locations right now than you’d imagine. Whether you are wanting an absolutely world-class tarpon experience, some great snook action, or you want to take your own shot at those GIANT jewfish, it doesn’t get a whole lot better than this.
Well, I hope that gives you some idea of the world-class action we’ve got going on right now. If you’d like to book a trip that you’ll not soon forget come and visit my website http://fishtheflats.com and we’ll get you hooked-up! Either way, I’ll be out there to let you know what’s going on.
I’ll see you out there,
Capt. Jason Ramsey
(941) 722-1645
|
Captain Dan Hicks
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 23, 2001 - 6:41 pm: | |
Subject: Fishing report ,Tampa Bay
Wow! It’s May already; The Fish are now starting to feed consistently and it’s becoming the month of “what would you like to catch”.
The current water temperatures being on the rise and without as much fluctuation have brought many species into the limelight.
Mac dill and Weedon Island are both producing numbers of snook, trout and redfish with the occasional cobia thrown in. Snapper have been on the artificial reefs and rock piles and are feeding most aggressively on small crabs and whitebaits; using a # 1 owner hook with four to five feet of thirty to forty pound test fluorocarbon leader attached to a swivel and slip sinker sufficient enough to get on the bottom, go as light as you can as these fish are very line and sinker shy; fifteen to twenty pound test running line on the appropriate rod will work perfectly they are an absolute blast to catch and great on the table as well.
Trout have been feeding on the grass flats with good current flow, the morning bite has been best on artificial baits due to the fact you can cover much more area. Best luck has come from using the Bubba’s jigs curly tail in fire pumpkin or root beer gold paired with an 1/8 ounce head or the Mirrolure catch 2000 in the new pins color # 20MR-PIN or for topwater excitement the Top dog jr. 84MR-PIN both of the later are pinfish imitators and have proven to be an outstanding trout bait.
Cobia are eating big curly tails and eels as well as hard baits or plugs. Like using pinfish? Try the same plugs mentioned above for cobia, they’re much easier to keep alive wile on the rod, as they don’t require a well to stay alive. Look at area grass flats and markers, bouys etc. for fish that may be willing to feed.
Snook have been feeding around rock piles and oyster bars, grass lines and sandy patches with good water flow. Hint: where there’s bait there will be fish.
Successful fishing for all species requires thinking “outside of the normal routine” If your fish have checked out they haven’t gone far. Look at the surrounding waters for habitat that would support the fish your after then spend some time checking it out. You will be well rewarded for your efforts.
Tarpon are here in good numbers and many anglers are having great success around the bridges at night as well as during the day on both live and artificial baits on the slower currents. Plugs such as the Mirrolure 85M-18 or bomber magnum long A or live baits such as threadfins, pinfish, mullet, and ladyfish have all been good baits.
Redfish have become much more cooperative in the last few weeks; fish are beginning to school but are very sensitive to pressure and noise and have been feeding best on a moving tide with a quiet approach and nice sized whitebaits. Wading has been by far the best way to catch quantities of these weary gamesters; if and when you should decide you want to give wading a try please shuffle your feet so as not to step on any stingrays and keep an eye on your surroundings.
Spanish Mackerel have been very strong this month and should only get better through the summer.
Bait has been a little more consistent in some of the more traditional areas, such as grass flats and bridges. Upon your approach look for other anglers trying to net bait and be weary of their location; PLEASE do not drive through somebody’s chum slick, the flats are getting very crowded and we all benefit from a little space and consideration while attempting to fulfill our passion for the sport.
Best bet for the coming weeks will be to look for snook in a summer spawning type pattern in areas of good water flow and with some protective structure nearby.
Look for bait to become more plentiful on the flats and redfish to school in larger quantities along flats.
Look for cobia to hang on range and channel markers and use the appropriate tackle, 20lb test minimum and even better would be 30# with a 40-60# leader 5’ long connected via a surgeons or uni- knot and a stout rod. If you get a nice cobia to chew you’re going to need every bit of it.
Trout will remain on the deeper grass flats through out the remainder of the summer and can be caught with the same methods.
Snapper will hold on the reefs and rock piles throughout the summer months and the best bet will be to fish 2.5 – 4” whitebaits on #1-1/0 owner hooks as mentioned above during swift current flows with a chum block on the bottom to speed up the bite.
Tarpon will remain in the bay through fall and will continue to feed on the same patterns
Spanish Mackerel will continue to feed heavily, use a chum block on the surface near known bait hangouts in deeper water or bridges and free line or cork baits near the surface on a swift tide for best results the smaller snapper baits are ideal for these speedy guys. Watch out for the teeth! They’re razor sharp.
Capt. Dan Hicks of
Fishtales Charter Service Inc.
Can be reached at
813-902-0715 or 813-361-7383
|
Capt. John Sackett
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 20, 2001 - 6:26 pm: | |
Subject: The latest action from www.AnglingAdventure.com
Busy… Best describes the fishing along the Gulfcoast!
Well, with weeks and weeks having passed since my last report, I’m hardly going to scratch the surface here on all the action my partners and I are enjoying right now, but I’ll try and do my best anyway!
Where do I start?
First, I’ll recap a little of the action that I’ve personally enjoyed with clients over the last couple of weeks, and then I’ll go on to talk about the action some of my partners have reported to me as well. Recent highlights aboard both my 21 foot Hydra-Sports and my 34 foot Baja have all involved “silver”. You know, either “silver kings”, or “kings of silver”. Both have required some work on occasion, but both are paying pretty big dividends for those that are pursuing them.
Case in point, last Monday I had the opportunity to fish for the first time with Paul Bishop who traveled with his wife and little one down from Tennessee. Now Paul is an experienced angler and he seemed to take in stride the fact that we watched 5 other boat hook tarpon right around us up inside Tampa Bay, but I wanted to hook him up in the worst way. Well, try as we might the bay itself produced very little, and even after burning a half a tank of gas hunting the big sand flats off the beach…. Zip! We’re talking nothing but a half dozen or so Spanish mackerel that swiped baits intended for larger targets. It was a great day, we saw a ton of wildlife and I was in great company, but somehow we just never got him his tarpon shot. Hopefully my day with him on Wednesday would be different. It was! Back into Tampa Bay we went, we anchored up, and we waited, well sort of. You see the tarpon had no intentions of keeping us waiting long and the threadfin on the end of Paul’s 8 foot Crowder rod got snarfed! The fish behaved well and swam clear of the structure all around us, but it only gave us one decent look at it as it greyhounded clear of the water at a high rate of speed. Based on the big white belly we saw hanging beneath it, I congratulated Paul on hooking into his first triple digit fish on light tackle. Talk about an understatement… At just under an hour into this epic battle, Paul’s big fish finally decided to give us a better look at it. First it gave us a violent head shake right on the surface, and then all of a sudden in an effort to rid itself of that annoying little Owner hook, it gave us two huge jumps with the first being a perfect cartwheel. Paul new it was a good fish, but I think that in addition to the torture test he was giving that Crowder rod, it was the look on my face when I finally got a good look at his fish that gave him a clearer indication of just how special this fish was. This wasn’t much like the bass fishing he does back home, but he handled the rod like a pro, and when I finally leadered the fish nearly two hours later, Paul got to enjoy a good look at a fish that wasn’t too far shy of two hundred pounds! That fish was probably 16-18 inches across his back alone, and undoubtedly the biggest one I’ve landed in the last four years. Add to his incredible fight a couple hours of decent snook action, and you had the makings of an awesome day on the water. Congratulations Paul!
Now the question for Friday’s trip with Steve Fortried be as productive? I could only hope. Fortunately for Steve the record went something like, first bait cast, Spanish mackerel caught, second bait cast, slam, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, kersplash, kersplash again. Oh yeah, hooked up and off to the races on the second bait! To make a two hour story relatively short, the drag on my big Okuma reel sang as sweet as could be for 120 minutes and Steve had the ride of his life while he tired what turned out to be a hundred fifty pound class fish. It was the second fish of the week that actually turned out to be a three county fish! Both Steve and Paul hooked up on big fish in Manatee County and got dragged clear across Hillsborough County, and all the way into Pinellas County. Sure, Hillsborough is pretty narrow in that part of Tampa Bay, but a three county fish is pretty cool anyway! At that point in the morning, it was decided Steve needed a bit of a break so we headed off toward the big sand flats just to see what we could see. Well, wouldn’t you know it, we didn’t find a single school of the jacks I was expecting, we found more tarpon. Fortunately for Steve, the next couple of fish hooked were impressive, but neither stayed on long enough to exaggerate the soreness he would feel for the next couple of days.
Okay, enough about the silver kings, let’s touch on the kings of silver… Saturday, I finally had the opportunity to stretch the 250 Mercs on my Baja, and it was well worth it. Well, sort of. You see I was booked with back to back six hour trips Saturday, the first of which was with a great bunch of folks from P.B.O.A. and some of the agents they work with. To say that we had a tough trip would be an extreme understatement! I could buy a fish out there! We ran North from our start in Sarasota to a wreck that has been red hot with sharks, spanish mackerel, cobia, and best of all jewfish. You see they were competing with other boats for most fish (the spanish would be perfect), and biggest fish (the jewfish would fit the bill here), but I’m reasonably sure that “least” fish was the only thing we were in the running for. Well, unless they counted the bait we sabiki rigged as the “smallest” that is. Anyway, I know I can’t control the fish, but I apologized nonetheless for our poor showing. So there I am preparing for my second trip of the day and thinking that I needed to do something radically different for my afternoon run, then I thought, no, stick with what you know works. Well, 30 minutes of slow trolling with a spread consisting of a shiner on one rod, a big threadfin on the flatline clip, and a jumbo blue runner trailing the downrigger, finally produced my clients first decent fish of the day. At the time, we just didn’t realize how decent. All four of the guys I had aboard took their turns on what turned out to be one heck of a challenge on a light kingfish sized tackle. Better than an hour later we were taking pictures of a beautiful blacktip shark that probably fell into the 80 plus pound bracket as I popped the leader and set him free. Time to get back to basics, I dropped the anchor on some inviting looking bait holding tight to the bottom and I dropped the chumbag back into the water. 20 minutes passed with relative little activity, but then thing finally started to happen they way they were supposed to. First a couple of missed hits, then a couple of the long shanked hook rigs got cut off clean. Sure enough, those weren’t spanish macks feeding, those were undoubtedly the kingfish that we had been hoping for. Out came the wire leader and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz we were hooking up solid. For the next couple of hours every bait we threw got slammed. No, we didn’t catch them all. We still managed a few cut offs and more than a few missed on the single hook rigs we were casting, but the fun we had was beyond description. When you get a good kingfish bite going on snook sized tackle, you are in for a lot of fun. Rig your anchor to a float to assist in quick get aways when a big fish threatens to spool you, but even with the Okuma Epix reels we were using, we managed kings all the way to twenty pounds on Saturday without once throwing the anchorline once. Sure, it got a little stressful and we got a little nervous a couple of times, but then again that’s a good kind of stress to have, I promise!
My partners are busy too…
Last week the results from my partners were probably even better than my own. Just about everything that could be caught, got caught. Sure there were tough days too here and there, but for the most part, now is definitely the time to plan on getting out there!
Capt. Steve Barron out of Palmetto had an awesome week once again that included things like 39 inch snook, and more than a few permit, but one his more memorable days was certainly last Monday when he fished for the first time with Pat Archer and his wife who traveled here all the way from New Mexico. Now while they might not have had a ton of experience dealing with fish like the perms and snook Steve put them on, I’m relatively sure that the three or more tarpon they hooked into were well beyond anything they had expected! It was great day, but the sight of tarpon doing cartwheels ten feet in the air, and the feeling of pressure they apply on the other end of your line, are things that I’m fairly sure Pat will never forget. Anyday that you do battle with tarpon and permit in the same day, is probably my idea of the ultimate gulfcoast fishing day.
Capt. Brian Kisluk of Bradenton was also out on the hunt for tarpon this week, but it was really easy to be on of the unlucky ones (see my first day with Paul Bishop above), and not get hooked up with one of the big boys. In Brian’s case though, his thorough knowledge of our area waters was instrumental in insuring his clients success. You see while Paul and I never really did get the action going strong the day the tarpon were ignoring us, Capt. Brian put his floks onto a “grand slam” that consisted of redfish, trout and snook. I know that’s a “flats” slam and not a “grand” slam right? After all, it takes a fourth species to make a slam truly “grand”. Well, in Brian’s case you can take you pick on a fourth species since thy also caught jack crevalle, flounder, spanish mackerel and even ladyfish that day.
Capt. Jason Ramsey of Palmetto was busy with his normal routine of tarpon hunt mornings, followed by snook style afternoons, with a couple notable exceptions. Exception number one, a tarpon less morning on the big structure in Tampa Bay lead him to explore an area on one of his favorite flats where he had seen a few tarpon rolling the day before. As he put it, “Wow, what a great call that was”! When I asked him if he had seen the fish rolling again, he said, “they didn’t have time to”. It was another of those first cast, slam, kind of things. You gotta love it when that happens! Two really unique things about this tarpon though were both it’s determination, and it’s size. Not only did this fish do the three county thing like the one above, but three hours and 10 minutes after the battle began, Jason carefully slipped his lipgaff into the fish’s mouth and started to lift. So far so good, then the tremendous weight of the huge tarpon straightened the hook! It was an incredible battle with a tremendous adversary on 30 pound spinning tackle. Exception to the norm number two, the very same clients (Ward Simpson and his sons) that endured the aforementioned tarpon, were out with Jason hoping to hook into another silver king, but the fish were less co-operative, so plan two was put into effect. Plan two, in this case involved taking advantage of the calm conditions and running a few miles out into the Gulf to one of Jason’s favorite wrecks. Some shiners were tossed out over the wreck and the results were almost instantaneous. The scorecard was impressive with a pile of spanish mackerel landed, then 4 or 5 really nice sharks and 3 keeper sized cobia were caught and released. So far so good, but as they battled yet another fish boatside, a huge swirl erupted on the water’s surface when a huge jewfish came up and inhaled the unsuspecting “bait”. Now jewfish encounters are fairly frequent on this particular wreck and Jason has battled many unsuccessfully on conventional tackle all the way up to hundred pound test, but this fish just ate a fish being played on a 30 pound tarpon size spinning rig. No chance landing this one, or so everyone thought. Well, Ward’s son stayed patient and somehow the fish stayed out of the wreck and believe it or not some 45-50 minutes later he had the beast boatside! Needless to say, this wasn’t the longest battle of our week, but it still deserves “catch of the week” honors. Drop me an e-mail titled “catch of the week” and I’ll return a photo of fish that you won’t soon forget.
A little further south of here, things are equally hot. The Boca Grande are is of course world famous for it’s tarpon, the sharks that eat those tarpon, and almost as much so for the incredible amount of pristine backcountry adjacent to it. Capt. Mike Wise lives right in the heart of that area and is showing clients almost every aspect of it on a regular basis. Whether you choose to fish “the pass” for GIANTS and experience that area as most do, or you set aside some time to have Mike show you some incredibly huge snook, or numerous redfish and trout, it’s just a flat awesome time to be down there. Fishing from a boat like Mike’s 20 foot Lake & Bay is an incredible experience from one end of the bay to the other. The trickiest part of hooking up down there is probably getting a date with a first rate guide, so you’ll want to call or e-mail Mike soon!
Get in touch with us soon!
Well, I hope that gives you some idea of the world-class action we’ve got going on right now. If you’d like to book a trip that you’ll not soon forget come and visit my website http://www.AnglingAdventure.com and we’ll get you hooked-up! Either way, we’ll be out there to let you know what’s going on.
Like my friend Capt. Mark always said,
Catch ‘em up!
Capt. John Sackett
(941) 920-4891
(877) 269-FISH (3474) Toll Free |
Capt. Jason Ramsey
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 05, 2001 - 4:04 pm: | |
Subject: The latest from www.fishtheflats.com
Tarpon Central, right here, right now …
Sure, we’re still enjoying some super snook action too, but if you’re as addicted to GIANT tarpon as I am, or if you still haven’t experienced your first, you need to get out there soon! The bottom line is that the wind is just about the only limiting factor there is right now. If your “on-water” time coincides with a windless day, doing the dance with a triple digit “silver king” is almost a certainty. Needless to say, available dates on the calendar are getting pretty rare for the next couple of months, but give a call, or drop an e-mail and we’ll set aside the time to get you hooked-up.
Where do I start?
First, I’ll recap a little of the results we’ve had since my partner’s computer died and we last updated my report. Now, since that’s already been more than a couple of weeks and I’ve been out every day since, I’ll be the first one to admit that my memory is more than a little fuzzy already, but I’ll give it a shot anyway.
Last week ended with the winds doing 10-15 knots pretty regularly, but since Scott Hesaltine and his buddies were in town for two days with little other than tarpon on their minds, tarpon hunting we went! Preparation began by both my partner and I burning more than a little fuel as we tried to see if the big fish would be found in any decent numbers outside the passes yet, but with no more than a few dozen fish found out on the big sand flats, we determined to start Scott’s party off in the deeper waters of Tampa Bay itself. Boy, did that pay off! Scott started things off on my boat, and then things aboard my partner’s boat lit up and they were off to the races. Day two went a little differently though as the first bait to hit the water got slammed, a hour and fifty five minute battle ensued, and the nothing for the next three hours or so… Thankfully, patience paid off and the next couple of fish were hooked in the early afternoon. In the end, with a great group of four guys aboard two boats for two consecutive days, the scorecard looked like 15 or more tarpon hooked, 7 boated for pictures, a few snook and trout caught, and a pile of laughs all the way around. Better yet, all four guys left with their image burned in film while someone struggled to hoist up the fish of a lifetime, and nobody was left out!
Right on the heels of the Hesaltine party checking out of Bungalow Beach Resort on Anna Maria Island, Randall Sakai and Ann Robbins were checking in with the same exact tarpon ambitions. Well, the winds still really never did give us a break and the fish never really popped up out on the sand flats yet, but we did tarpon both days and even managed to land the “catch of the week”. While a bunch of the fish that Scott Hesaltine’s party landed were firmly up into the 150 pound neighborhood, and could have qualified for the same honors, the more I look at the girth of Randall’s best fish in the photos we took, and the more vividly I remember the aching in back once I hoisted it up (I didn’t get it too far up though), the more convinced I am that this fish was in the 160-170 bracket. One thing I can tell you is that a little weight lifting before you come and fish with us wouldn’t hurt… Oh yeah, as a sidebar to all this tarpon stuff, I wanted to mention that we also landed our first couple of fish on Okuma’s big Coronado model spinning reels too. It has a bait feeder feature like the Shimano’s do (which can be a bad thing if it get switched on by accident in the heat of a tarpon battle) and it should prove to be a great reel for the evening shark trips we’ll be offering soon. The bottom line is that they are really smooth, don’t have any big reel style wobble, and Skyway Bait & Tackle sells them about $50 cheaper than the big Shimano ones. I’ll keep torturing them and let you know how it goes.
Looking ahead…
The trips I talked about above were pretty indicative of what you can expect right now, and with the tarpon already leaving the deeper parts of the big bay, you can find them in more locations right now than you’d imagine. Capt. T.J. Stewart hooked a really big one just yesterday out of a pothole about four feet deep while targeting snook on one of his favorite flats. Unfortunately, it was on the end of a ten pound test outfit with an Okuma Epix reel on it, and his clients did battle with that fish for more than an hour (another decent test for the “little” Okuma reels eh?!) before the nearest bridge ended the battle for them. Even with all of this silver king potential the fact that 15-20 knot winds forced us into just “flats” fishing today, would have been disappointing, but since we still did a grand slam of trout, redfish, snook and flounder, who can complain? It’s an awesome time to be out there, and with the tarpon headed for the sand flats and the permit inching in toward the shallows too, it doesn’t get a whole lot better than this.
Well, I hope that gives you some idea of the world-class action we’ve got going on right now. If you’d like to book a trip that you’ll not soon forget come and visit my website http://fishtheflats.com and we’ll get you hooked-up! Either way, I’ll be out there to let you know what’s going on.
See ya out there,
Capt. Jason Ramsey
(941) 722-1645
|
Capt. John Sackett
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, April 23, 2001 - 11:26 pm: | |
Subject: The latest from www.AnglingAdventure.com
Here we go again with my apologies…
This time the delay in my getting this report out was as much a technical thing as it was a too busy kind of thing. Anyway you look at it though, I apologize to my faithful visitors who have had to wait waaaaaay too long for this up to date report! Over the last several weeks, I managed to kill one outboard engine (very mysteriously I might add), one desktop computer system (can you say my right arm?) and even my laptop (so much for back-up systems eh?!). Anyhow after all that adventure, I’m glad to say that I’m now operating a brand new Sony system (thanks to that 18 months with no interest type of thing), and that the fishing is great!
Where do I start?
I guess when it’s been weeks since my last report the best angle I can take with this report is to just give you a paragraph of overview type stuff, and then do some bullet points for you on the action being reported “guide by guide”. In terms of overviews, the most difficulty you’ll probably have in planning a day on the water right now, is probably going to be what type of fish to target! If you want to experience some of the best snookin’ of the year, right now’s the time to get out and do it. Want some terrific kingfish action, do it soon! How about really big permit? Right now is the time to get after them too. Oh yeah, if you want a shot at a whole bunch of truly GIANT tarpon you better have your plans made right now too! Now this is still called “fishing”, and not “catching” so some days will undoubtedly be a lot more productive than others, but the odds are good right now that you’ll have action that you won’t soon forget. Needless to say, with all that kind of stuff to report on, I’m going to get right to the action as it’s being reported up and down the gulf coast right now.
Take your pick…
Capt. Jason Ramsey out of Palmetto is doing some pretty incredible snookin’ right now in terms of both quantity and quality. The most surprising aspect of his recent success on the linesiders has to be the fact that he’s been able to devote just part time effort to them. You see his clients seem to enjoy hooking triple digit tarpon too (this week he put Scott Hesaltine on his first silver king, then Randall Sakai and Ann Robbins were next), so who can blame them for missing out on the snookin’?! Seriously though, he had one afternoon last week when he landed four fish in row that went at and above 30 inches. It was a matter of camping out for a little while on a pod of fish that he could see from the tower of his Hydra-Sports and just waiting for the bite to turn on. Sure enough, patience paid off, the tide switched around and SLAM! They had their first big snook on, then their second, then their third… Well, you get the idea. Palmetto’s Capt. Steve Barron has been busy hunting snook too, and may have offered evidence of the big fishes willingness to eat when one of is clients hooked one of the first 40 plus inchers of the season. Unfortunately, just as Steve was reaching for the fish at boatside, you guessed it, the hook pulled free. That’s okay, I know Steve, and he know where the 40 incchers live as well as any guide I know. I’ll let you know when he lands another. Whether you are looking for quality, or quantity, the snook bite is pretty strong right now!
Kingfish action has been a little on and off, but when it’s on, it’s really on! The kingfish action being reported has come from my 34 foot Baja, Capt. Sam Kimball’s 26 foot Parker and Capt. Chris Seger’s big 32 foot Sportfish too. The action can be a little hit and miss in terms of when it happens, and it seems like more often than not, a really hot morning bite is followed by a relatively slow afternoon one and vice versa. But it seems as if patience almost always pays off right now. Now each of us has his own preferred techniques and locations, but the common denominator has to be the enjoyment we get from our anglers when they see just how fast a reel can spin backwards with a decent kingfish on the end of their line! If you want to see the best example around of pure speed on the water, a kingfish will definitely show you a thing or two. Match you tackle to fish your finding and just have a ball! A good example of doing so had to be last Sunday when I had the opportunity to fish with Jerry from up in the Syracuse, NY area for the first time. Jerry and I had just hooked over one of the biggest kings I’ve fought over the last couple of weeks when we hooked-up while trolling around a giant baitpod just a mile or so off the beaches that day, but upon receiving a call on the radio from Capt. Sam I decided to change techniques and anchor-up right out in his neighborhood. Well, as I pulled near Sam’s boat to position myself, I could see that the action he was reporting was certainly accurate. Just picture 3 of Crowder Rods’ finest spinning rods doubled over simultaneously under the stress of 3 kings at a time! We anchored up a hundred yards or so away, but the laughter could be clearly heard from on boat to another, as Sam’s customers continued hooking fish at a torrid pace. We paid our dues, got our own chumslick going and after about 45 minutes our rods finally started feeling the same sort of strain. You may catch bigger fish trolling in close to the beaches, but chumming up fish in the 8-18 pound bracket and casting to them with light spinning gear is something that you’ve just got to try! Just do us a favor and try to hang onto your rod when they slam it (right Jerry?)!
Aside from all that kingfish kind of stuff, Capt. Sam and Capt. Chris have also been two of the busiest guides I know of when it comes to tackling trophy permit too! While our inshore and nearshore trips are still producing relatively few glimpses of the permit that are yet to come, the boys working offshore are well on their way to having one heck of a permit year. Needless to say, it’s a rare day right now when either of those guys pulls away from the dock without a livewell loaded with enough crustaceans to entertain their clients. In fact Capt. Chris’ only complaint is that on those days when the fish are “tailing” in 90 feet of water, it just so darned hard to get a bait to the “big” fish without the “little” ones from beating them to their offerings. While it may not come as too much of surprise to anyone that has enjoyed a good permit bite with us in the past that 12 baits can easily result in 12 fish, the fact that the “little” fish in Chris’ case are 20-30 pounds and that the “big” ones are between 40 and 50 pounds is truly impressive! If you want in on some of this action, I’d recommend a little weight lifting in preparation!
Okay, accuse me of saving the best for last if you must, but as an admitted “tarpon addict” there is nothing quite like the start of tarpon season. In our case we were fortunate to start our season back at the end of February, but now Capt. Mike Wise down in the Boca Grande area is getting in on the action too. While his snook and redfish normally get going sooner than ours, tarpon season starts just a little later there than it does here in the Tampa Bay area. When it comes to shear numbers of fish though (and more huge sharks than you can imagine!), Mike’s back yard can be an incredible place to fish! If you are looking to experience the best action Boca Grande has to offer, Capt. Mike’s 20 foot Lake and Bay flats boat is a heck of way to see it, and Mike is just the guy to show it to you.
Right here in Tampa Bay, Capt. Jason and myself have both been doing a decent job on our early season silver king pattern for weeks now, but Capt. T.J. Stewart, one of our newest partners has been absolutely on fire. Take last Friday for example, Jason landed the first fish of the morning aboard his boat, but then T.J.’s clients managed to hook just about every fish in the county. At least it seemed that way. In the end, both guides had their clients doing “Kodak moments” with huge fish, but the scorecard on T.J.’s Honda powered skiff was out of this world with at least 10 fish hooked, and three boated for pictures! Add to all that some terrific snook action in the afternoon and you’ve got a really cool kind of day. Now take into consideration the fact that the sightcasting season for these awesome fish is just beginning, and we’ve got more to look forward to over the next couple of months than I can even imagine! If you’ve never done the “tarpon dance” get in touch with us real soon.
Well, I hope that gives you some idea of the world-class action we’ve got going on right now. If you’d like to book a trip that you’ll not soon forget come and visit my website http://www.AnglingAdventure.com and I’ll get you hooked-up!
Like my friend Capt. Mark always said,
Catch ‘em up!
Capt. John Sackett
(941) 920-4891
|
Capt. Charlie Walker
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 22, 2001 - 5:48 pm: | |
Subject: Tampa Bay area Fishing Report
4/22/01
The Grand Ole Opry Kingfish Tournament went off as planned on Friday and Saturday and the winner, Mark Kennedy collected $100,000 for his winning fish that came from 90 miles offshore in the Florida Middle Grounds. I predicted that the big one would come from there because the National Marine Fisheries Service has collapsed the stocks of kingfish again by allowing the gill nets to slaughter all the stocks of kings that winter in Florida Bay each year. It’s a shame they didn’t learn anything the last time they allowed the netters to decimate the kings in 1978, but our Federal Government Numnutz never seem to learn from their mistakes! I’ll be writing a LOT more about this in the very near future. Watch for my articles to be posted in the "Top news stories that affect your fishing!" section of http://www.floridasaltwater.com .
Grouper fishing is still very hit and miss although a lot of short fish can be caught for catch and release fun. There have been a bunch of sailfish reported caught this week by anglers that were kingfishing. Maybe this is what we are going to have to do now that there are no more kings to target. Blackfin tuna have been sighted and caught around the shrimpers that are anchoring up 25 to 35 miles offshore in the early mornings.
If you really want to know what’s going on out there, give me a call and let’s go fishing now!
On to the bait house reports:
Ruskin Bait and Tackle - 813-641-2325- The cold snap in the middle of the week slowed things down a little but the snook have snapped back and begun biting again. Medium sized tarpon are in the river now. Grouper and mangrove snapper are being caught in the ship’s channel now in good numbers. Trout are really making a come-back in the Bay and really getting big. Lots of ‘gator’ trout are being caught on the flats now and are really a great fishing experience.
Buddy’s Bait and Tackle on the Courteney Campbell Causeway in Tampa - 813-287-1026 – Reds and trout are being caught along the Causeway. Lots of ladyfish are creating havoc for the light tackle anglers. Whiting are still being caught in the upper Bay on shrimp at night,
Trappman’s Bait and Tackle on Gandy Blvd in St. Petersburg - 727-579-1414- Pompano are around the bridges and are biting well on Doc’s Goofy Jigs and fiddler crabs. Lots of snook are around now around the docks and bars. Cobia are being seen now on the flats and are biting just about everything.
Dogfish Tackle on Redington Beach - 727-392-6644- Pompano and Spanish mackerel are biting on the beach this week. Reds and a few flounder are coming in from the Gulf side this week as well.
Don’s Dock on Madeira Beach - 727-391-3223- Sailfish are in the area for some reason this week. Mangrove snapper are really biting well from depths of 70 to 100 feet. Small kings are being landed, lots of them are too small to keep, but boats can still get their limit. Grouper fishing is slow still, with a little better fishing north of our area. Snook are turning on inshore.
Pass-a-Grille Bait and Tackle on St. Pete Beach - 727-360-6606- Spanish mackerel and grouper are coming in from our gas dock. Pompano and Spanish are being caught along the sea wall and the Gulf jetty.
The Skyway Fishing Pier - 727-865-0668 and the south Skyway - 941-729-0117- Spanish mackerel are biting pretty well this weekend. Some cobia and a few kings have been. The cooler water this week slowed things down a little, but they are coming back now.
Folks, feel free to call any of the places in my report for more information, and be sure to tell them that you read about the fishing in their area in Capt. Charlie’s fishing report on the Internet.
If you want more information about fishing in the Tampa Bay area or wish to book a charter, simply e-mail me at captchas@flfish.com or if you wish to arrange a charter faster, call me at 727-546-7257. Be sure and visit my web site for lots more Tampa Bay Area fishing info at: http://www.floridasaltwater.com .
Good fishing and tight lines,
Capt. Charlie
|
Capt. Charlie Walker
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, April 09, 2001 - 3:48 pm: | |
Subject: Tampa Bay area Fishing Report
Tampa Bay Area
Fishing Report
Captain Charles Walker
4/8/01
WOW!!!!!!! What a week this has been. The winds finally quit blowing on Wednesday and every day after that through the weekend was fabulous. There were plenty of small kings that would bite any spoon or live bait thrown in the water. One small tournament on Saturday was won with a 47 pound king! Now that’s a worthwhile fish. My trips this week were really great with plenty of kingfish action on light tackle and lots of grouper brought to the boat. Now if only the bait would show up so the game fish would hang around long enough to provide us with some real action.
On to the bait house reports:
Ruskin Bait and Tackle - 813-641-2325- Fishing is really taking off. The snook are here, but the greenbacks have disappeared. Reds are on the flats and in jumbo sizes. Trout are all over the place and will hit nearly any plug thrown at them as long as it looks like a minnow. Grouper are coming in from the ship’s channel.
Buddy’s Bait and Tackle on the Courteney Campbell Causeway in Tampa - 813-287-1026 – Lots of whiting and trout have been caught at the bridges this week. Snook are still residing at the flood gates. Sheepshead are biting well on crabs, blood worms, and pieces of shrimp.
Bonnie’s Bait and Tackle in Clearwater - 727-446-2772- Grouper are biting from thirty feet on out. Kings are biting for just everybody that throws live bait in the water. Trout and reds are on the flats all over the ICW From Clearwater to Anclote. Lots of big permit seem to be on several of the offshore wrecks this week. Some cobia have been caught in the vicinity of the Clearwater Bridge.
Trappman’s Bait and Tackle on Gandy Blvd in St. Petersburg - 727-579-1414- Snook have been biting well around the mangroves, but they are a little small right now. Reds are all around the oyster bars at Weedon Island. Pompano have shown up at odd times around the bridge. Sheepshead are slowing down this week and it’s time for the mangrove snapper to move in now.
Dogfish Tackle on Redington Beach - 727-392-6644- Blackfin tuna are showing up around the anchored shrimp boats offshore. Kings and Spanish mackerel are just offshore in pretty fair numbers this weekend. Grouper are biting in the 40 to 70 foot depths this week. Inshore, the snook are biting well on the outgoing tide.
Pass-a-Grille Bait and Tackle on St. Pete Beach - 727-360-6606- Pompano and Spanish mackerels are biting at the jetty on the Gulf side. Spanish mackerel have been coming in from our gas dock this weekend. The pier anglers are also catching mangrove snapper and sheepshead at our gas dock this week.
The Skyway Fishing Pier - 727-865-0668 and the south Skyway - 941-729-0117- Snook, grouper, sheepshead, trout, Spanish mackerel, sea bass, and small kings have all been caught this weekend.
Folks, feel free to call any of the places in my report for more information, and be sure to tell them that you read about the fishing in their area in Capt. Charlie’s fishing report on the Internet.
If you want more information about fishing in the Tampa Bay area or wish to book a charter, simply e-mail me at captchas@flfish.com or if you wish to arrange a charter faster, call me at 727-546-7257. Be sure and visit my web site for lots more Tampa Bay Area fishing info at: http://www.floridasaltwater.com .
Good fishing and tight lines,
Capt. Charlie
http://www.flfish.com/fl
|
Capt. John Sackett
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 01, 2001 - 9:32 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, whenever the wind has allowed it, 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
|
Capt. Charlie Walker
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 01, 2001 - 3:55 pm: | |
Subject: Tampa Bay area Fishing Report
Tampa Bay Area
Fishing Report
Captain Charles Walker
4/1/01
With the winds, rains, and more winds all week long, there’s not much anyone can say about fishing this week. The only catch report that I heard was this morning about the Sarasota Kingfish Tournament. At the end of day one, Capt. Randy Keyes was in the lead with a 44 pound king caught at the Skyway. This certainly leads me to believe that some kings have moved into the area and if the winds ever die, it’s time to go kingfishing! The big question is bait. The only bait I’ve heard about all week has been at the Skyway, not off the beaches. With today’s northwest wind, any bait that might have been coming our way will move back out. Hopefully the winds will die tonight and next week will be calm enough for the bait to move ashore and the kings to follow.
If you want more information about fishing in the Tampa Bay area or wish to book a charter, simply e-mail me at captchas@flfish.com or if you wish to arrange a charter faster, call me at 727-546-7257. Be sure and visit my web site for lots more Tampa Bay Area fishing info at: http://www.floridasaltwater.com .
Good fishing and tight lines,
Capt. Charlie
http://www.flfish.com/fl
|
Capt. Jason Ramsey
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 31, 2001 - 6:32 pm: | |
Subject: The Latest action from www.fishtheflats.com
Sorry again about the wait!
Whether it’s been computer difficulties, or just plain long days on the water, either way it’s been faaaaaaar longer in between reports than I’ve ever gone before! This has nothing to do with the quality of the fishing I have to report on, but any way you look at it, I apologize to my faithful readers for making them wait so long.
Follow the bouncing ball…
The bouncing ball so to speak has been our water temperature. As I left you with my last report, we were off to a really early start relative to our tarpon season. Well that trend that started those last couple of days of February have continued right through March, but water temperatures have dictated just how hot the bite has been. If you are in the bay area and are fortunate enough to have calm winds and water temps of 70 degrees or better, doing the tarpon dance is just about a guaranteed thing right now! With the passing of several fronts in March the bite has varied dramatically as our water temps seem to drop very quickly into the mid sixties and the action on the big fish slows dramatically. Then, ever so slowly, the waters will once again warm and all of a sudden, it’ll seem like every bait that hits the water will get slammed! This is still early season, deep water fishing and not the sightcasting kind of stuff we’ll have in another month or so, but one of the best examples of how hot the bite can be right now had to be the action we had one morning during the second week of the month. I left the dock early as I usually do to get out and load up on bait before returning to town to pick-up my clients. My partner Capt. John departed Regatta Point marina in Palmetto with his clients at about 7:00 and I gave him a couple scoops of bait as we passed on my return to pick-up my customers at 8:00. He ran out to our favorite structure, anchored up, hooked a couple baits on his 8 foot G.Loomis spinning outfits and gave instruction to his clients on where the fish would likely be relative to the structure. Well, the instructions were accurate and on the second cast, the bait off the left side of his Hydra-Sports got inhaled by a big fish! So off to the races they went. I called to check in with him before my client’s arrival and he informed me of just how quickly their bite came and that they had just finished maneuvering back over to his anchor after the 45 minute battle and the photos of a lifetime.
Given the tarpon’s willingness to feed, we also decided that while I ran my clients out toward their location, John would head back and try to catch some more BIG tarpon sized baits for both of us. Unfortunately (well not really), catching some more big bait wasn’t in the cards for John and his anglers since the first bait they tossed after landing their first 100 plus pounder of the day, get slammed as well! Needless to say, John’s next call to me was the “sorry, but we can’t get to the bait right now ‘cause we’re hooked-up again” type of call. I said, “no problem” and asked “how long you going to be on that fish”? His response was that this fish was a bigger one and that he’d have at least another 30 minutes before this one would be boatside. “Good” I said, I’m going to borrow your anchor ‘til you’re done. Well, you probably guessed it by now, but the outcome was just about immediate as we hooked yet another big tarpon right from the same anchor in less than 10 minutes time! 3 fish in maybe 20 minutes of both boats sitting on the same exact spot. When the bite is on, the bite is on!
It’s not just tarpon either…
Sure, I’m an admitted tarpon addict, but fortunately, if your visit here puts you on the water during one of those cooler spells, or on a day too windy for fishing in the bigger part of the bay, that’s okay. Between the trout, cobia, jacks and most importantly the snook, chances are you aren’t going to have time to get bored around here. Our most popular fishing days right now usually involve doing the tarpon thing in the morning and then heading into the flats for an afternoon of snookin’, and it’s been working really well. In fact the day described above with the hot tarpon bite was a great example of this as well since the same anglers had the opportunity to land jacks, redfish, trout and snook all in addition to their triple digit tarpon. Anglers that want to focus their day on the flats action and forgo the aforementioned big game opportunities, or have been forced to do so, have been rewarded with some awesome action. Early in the month it was a couple of my friends from up at www.bighornoutdoors.com that were forced by wind to come up into the mangroves and videotape some snook action, and just yesterday it was Matt McIntee and company from up at Crown Golf that was limited to “just” snook fishing. In the end we got 3 tarpon on video with Tom and Todd from www.bighornoutdoors.com but we got a whole bunch of snook action on their camcorder as well. Yesterday on the other hand Matt and company must have done at least 35 or more snook. Like I said, just about everything that swims is really active in the spring of the year.
It’s not just on the flats either…
One notable day that I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention here, had to be the day that Capt. Allan Engle, Capt. Keith Rogers and Chris Westbury had last week. Proof positive that spring is an incredible time to be on the water had to be 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. Allen and the boys. What a day! 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. Now if I can just get a day off, I think we’ll have to get Capt. John’s 34 foot Baja out and stretch it’s legs a bit to see if we can get in on some of that offshore stuff!
Well, I hope this has given you some idea of what’s going on out there. This time of year, you just never know what’s gonna happen out there. Spring time is a magic time around here, so try and set aside some time to get out there real soon. If you want to set up a trip just drop me an e-mail at capt@fishtheflats.com or give me a call at (941) 722-1645.
Either way, we’ll be out there to let you know what’s going on,
Capt. Jason Ramsey
http://fishtheflats.com
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Capt. Charlie Walker
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 25, 2001 - 8:41 pm: | |
Subject: Tampa Bay area Fishing Report
Tampa Bay Area
Fishing Report
Captain Charles Walker
3/25/01
The winds finally died on Friday so everyone could go fishing over the weekend. Everybody did go fishing too! It looked more like the 4th of July out there. Everyone that owned a boat was on the water I think. The Gulf was muddy for over ten miles off shore but everybody was fishing anyway. If you picked a spot and anchored up, within 10 minutes someone would come up and either try to steal your number or just anchor up on top of you. Anglers trolling hardware caught a lot of tiny king mackerel and I had some reports of grouper being caught in the 60 foot depths. We went out to 90 feet and found a lot of 14 inch red grouper and no legal grouper on either frozen sardines or live cigar minnows. The surface water temperature is only 65 degrees yet, so I guess everything on the bottom is waiting for a little warmer water to start biting. I’ll be fishing for kings now for the next few weeks, so the baby grouper are safe from me for a while at least.
On to the bait house reports:
Ruskin Bait and Tackle - 813-641-2325- Snook are biting like crazy in the Cockroach Bay area. Trolling for grouper in the ship’s channel is the ticket for grouper this week. Spanish mackerel have come back up into the Bay after the last cold snap. Lots of sheepies are in the Bay and biting like crazy.
Buddy’s Bait and Tackle on the Courteney Campbell Causeway in Tampa - 813-287-1026- Trout and reds have been biting around the Causeway this week. Lots of small snook have been caught at the big bridge. Snook have been caught at the flood gates on live grunts and lots have been seen in the canals but weren’t biting over the weekend.
Bonnie’s Bait and Tackle in Clearwater - 727-446-2772- Grouper have been coming in from 60 feet this weekend on the all day boats. A few small kings have been caught off Clearwater. We’re still waiting for the kings to show up, hopefully any day now.
Trappman’s Bait and Tackle on Gandy Blvd in St. Petersburg - 727-579-1414- Reds have been biting well around the Weedon Island area and are biting best on live shrimp. Snook have been biting well on pinfish around the Gandy Bridge rock piles. Sheepshead are still biting well at all the rock piles and pilings.
Dogfish Tackle on Redington Beach - 727-392-6644- The back waters are pretty muddy this week. The pier anglers this week landed cobia, Spanish mackerel and kingfish, even with the muddy water.
Don’s Dock on Madeira Beach - 727-391-3223- Spanish mackerel seem to be the majority of fish caught this week. Some grouper and snapper came in this week. from 80 feet and a few were caught in 60 feet.
Pass-a-Grille Bait and Tackle on St. Pete Beach - 727-360-6606- Our offshore boats have been bringing in small kingfish, some grouper, and plenty of grunts. Lots of sheepshead are biting up and down the seawall, some even with yellow stripes.? Trout are biting along the wall as well this week. Pompano have been the fish of choice off the jetty this week. A red was caught under our gas dock today.
The Skyway Fishing Pier - 727-865-0668 and the south Skyway - 941-729-0117- Grouper, Spanish mackerel, silver trout, and sheepshead are biting during the day and the sharks are starting to bite well at night. On the south side, sheepshead and Spanish mackerel are biting well during the day and of course the sharks are available at night.
Folks, feel free to call any of the places in my report for more information, and be sure to tell them that you read about the fishing in their area in Capt. Charlie’s fishing report on the Internet.
If you want more information about fishing in the Tampa Bay area or wish to book a charter, simply e-mail me at captchas@flfish.com or if you wish to arrange a charter faster, call me at 727-546-7257. Be sure and visit my web site for lots more Tampa Bay Area fishing info at: http://www.floridasaltwater.com .
Good fishing and tight lines,
Capt. Charlie
http://www.flfish.com/fl
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Capt. John Sackett
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2001 - 11:04 am: | |
Subject: The latest action from www.AnglingAdventure.com
Sorry about the wait!
I know, I’ve apologized before for the delayed nature of some reports, but these last couple of weeks have been unbelievably busy. Between fishing with our clients, fishing with the boys that came down from http://www.bighornoutdoors.com , and getting out with a videographer to capture some video footage we’ll be integrating into our website with it’s next major revision, things have been waaaay too hectic around here. Then again as stressful as all that sounds, it’s a good kind of stress I promise!
The tale of last Wednesday…
I guess to give you an idea of the well rounded opportunities that we have right here in the Tampa Bay area itself, I’ll just relate the story of this past Wednesday. Wednesday I was fortunate enough to fish with Ken, Vern, and their sister Linda for the first time. Unfortunately it was their father’s health (heart surgery to be specific) that brought them to town, but they were able to sneak a day on the water in while their dad was recuperating. This of course was exactly what he wanted them to do, as any hard core, old school fisherman, would have. So with a one day opportunity to make it happen, off we went in search just about everything that swims. The cool news is that that is exactly what we found. We did an “inshore” slam consisting of Redfish, Snook and Trout. Then we added Jack Crevalle as our fourth species to round out what would have been a “grand” slam. I guess the grandest part of the day though had to be the fact that we caught 2 triple digit Tarpon, before we even headed into the flats! I guess that makes the action we had a “super” slam of sorts.
All in all, I’m not sure if Linda’s first fish, a real nice Jack of about 8 pounds, or her first Snook would have been the catch of the day, but both were awesome when you consider the violent strike that accounted for them, and the truly surprised look on her face that went along with each! I don’t think that the Bluegill she has caught up North ever had her as nervous as these fish did as they stripped the light mono off the little G.Loomis spinning outfit she was using. Okay, maybe both of those were a little overshadowed by the Tarpon. As an admitted “Tarpon addict” I can tell you that there is nothing I’ve ever done on the water that gives me as much satisfaction as putting angler on their first “silver king”! On Wednesday I got that feeling twice. First it was Ken’s fish of about 110 pounds, and second it was Vern’s at about 140. It was an awesome day no matter how you look at it, and the season is just beginning. Now Ken’s fish was a “typical” fish in both the size and the manner in which it fought, but Vern’s fish was like Tarpon on steroids. Ken’s 45 minute battle was a great one, but at 45 minutes, Vern’s shocked us all by throwing a big cartwheel into the equation! That fish just didn’t seem to tire, and it took us over an hour before we finally had the leader in the rod guides of my 8 foot Loomis rod! So, take your pick, they all really were worthy of “catch of the week” honors.
In all, if you are looking for some great fishing, the fishing around here for the next several months is going to be really hard to beat. The Grouper are still out there and very willing to eat, the Kingfish migration will be in full swing shortly, the Snook fishing will be steady to incredible for a while now, and perhaps best of all, it’s Tarpon time! My advise to all of you out there, is to step away from the computer as soon as you can, and go get a line wet. It really doesn’t get much better than this!
Well with any luck at all, this has given you some idea what kind of action we have going on now, and coming up, across the Tampa Bay area. Anyway you look at it, there’s really never a bad time to plan a trip down our way. If you are looking for more information on all the opportunities we’ve got going on, or are interested in booking a trip with one of the finest guides in the area, be sure and visit each of our webpages within our new website http://www.AnglingAdventure.com . Either way, we’ll be out there to let you now what’s going on.
Like our friend Capt. Mark Rankin always said,
Catch ‘em up!
Capt. John Sackett
(941) 920-4891
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Capt. Charlie Walker
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 18, 2001 - 8:18 pm: | |
Subject: Tampa Bay area Fishing Report
Tampa Bay Area
Fishing Report
Captain Charles Walker
3/18/01
The weather for the past week has been nothing but wind, wind, and more wind. The few boats that did go out managed to catch a few grouper and mangrove snapper. Some small kings were caught around the ship’s channel offshore and the Clearwater hard bottom.
On to the bait house reports:
Ruskin Bait and Tackle - 813-641-2325- Grouper showed up in the channel again this week even though the winds were high. Snook and big trout were brought by the shop in good numbers this week. Lot of Spanish mackerel have shown back up in the Bay since it warmed back up. Sheepshead are so abundant, they are even being caught out in the middle of the grass flats.
Buddy’s Bait and Tackle on the Courteney Campbell Causeway in Tampa - 813-287-1026- Some trout and whiting have come in this week from around the big bridge. Pompano have been caught on the flats and around the bridges. Most of the anglers have been using live shrimp.
Bonnie’s Bait and Tackle in Clearwater - 727-446-2772- The winds have kept most anglers at home this week, but there were lots of trout and reds caught around Anclote this week. Snook are being caught on the inside on live bait and a few white bait have shown up on the flats. The offshore boats that have been able to get out are bringing in some grouper. Some kings have been caught this week in the 20 foot hard bottom, even on frozen sardines.
Trappman’s Bait and Tackle on Gandy Blvd in St. Petersburg - 727-579-1414- Sheepshead have been caught everywhere on the bridge this week. Snook have been showing up on the flats along with trout and redfish.
Dogfish Tackle on Redington Beach - 727-392-6644- Some kings are being caught in 60 to 70 feet of water. Silver trout and whiting are coming in from the beaches. Grouper are starting to bite again this week in 40 to 60 feet of water.
Don’s Dock on Madeira Beach - 727-391-3223- Some small kings and a few grouper have been brought in this week. Snook are being caught around the bridge and the Pass jetties. Trout and reds are on the flats inside the pass. Everything seems to be biting on shrimp this week.
Pass-a-Grille Bait and Tackle on St. Pete Beach - 727-360-6606- The few boats that went out this week caught some grouper and kings in the vicinity of the ship’s channel. The inshore fishing has been slow as well because of the wind all week.
The Skyway Fishing Pier - 727-865-0668 and the south Skyway - 941-729-0117- A lot of grouper and Spanish mackerel have been caught this week. The sheepshead are still biting well and are all around the pilings on both piers.
Folks, feel free to call any of the places in my report for more information, and be sure to tell them that you read about the fishing in their area in Capt. Charlie’s fishing report on the Internet.
If you want more information about fishing in the Tampa Bay area or wish to book a charter, simply e-mail me at captchas@flfish.com or if you wish to arrange a charter faster, call me at 727-546-7257. Be sure and visit my web site for lots more Tampa Bay Area fishing info at: http://www.floridasaltwater.com .
Good fishing and tight lines,
Capt. Charlie
http://www.flfish.com/fl
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Capt. Charlie Walker
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 11, 2001 - 3:54 pm: | |
Subject: Tampa Bay area Fishing Report
Tampa Bay Area
Fishing Report
Captain Charles Walker
3/11/01
The weather over the last week has produced mostly high winds and we had a full moon at the end of this week as well. Grouper fishing has been spotty at best since the full moon and if you were able to get out at all, you probably found few fish that were willing to bite. The prognosis for the upcoming week is a lot better with temperatures rising again and the winds staying down at a reasonable level (hopefully). Spanish mackerel should be rallying again in the Bay and close to shore up and down the beach, the kings should be moving a little closer, and all the other migratory fish that we get; cobia, tripletail, tarpon, sharks, etc. will be close on their heels.
On to the bait house reports:
Ruskin Bait and Tackle - 813-641-2325- The winds really kicked the flats fishing on this side of the Bay last week, but the fishing is picking back up now. Plenty of reds trout and snook are around the flats and around the mangrove islands. Fish the passes on an outgoing tide from Simmons Park to Tierra Ceia for the best results.
Buddy’s Bait and Tackle on the Courteney Campbell Causeway in Tampa - 813-287-1026- Reds, trout, and whiting have been biting well in our area. Some pompano showed up this week around the bridge. There are still plenty of sheepshead around the pilings and rocks.
Trappman’s Bait and Tackle on Gandy Blvd in St. Petersburg - 727-579-1414- Speckled trout in the jumbo sizes have been coming in all week. Most of them have been coming from the swashes on Weedon Island. Reds and snook have been biting extremely well around the bridge pilings. Most Sheepshead are still very cooperative and biting around every piling and rock pile in the area.
Dogfish Tackle on Redington Beach - 727-392-6644- The weather killed most of the fishing in the area last week. Sheepshead are still biting however. Warming temperatures this week should get the fish turned back on soon.
Don’s Dock on Madeira Beach - 727-391-3223- Snook are showing up around the docks. Sheepshead and drum are still biting well. Spanish mackerel have started biting in about 20 feet of water off the beach since the cold snap ended.
Pass-a-Grille Bait and Tackle on St. Pete Beach - 727-360-6606- Our offshore boats have been bringing in some grouper and mangrove snapper this week. Sheepshead and pompano have been coming in from the seawall and the jetty on the Gulf side. Spanish mackerel have been biting on the Gulf side jetty as well.
The Skyway Fishing Pier - 727-865-0668 and the south Skyway - 941-729-0117- Grouper, silver trout, whiting, pompano and lots of Spanish mackerel have been biting this weekend and the warming weather will make things get better and better as the week progresses.
Folks, feel free to call any of the places in my report for more information, and be sure to tell them that you read about the fishing in their area in Capt. Charlie’s fishing report on the Internet.
If you want more information about fishing in the Tampa Bay area or wish to book a charter, simply e-mail me at captchas@flfish.com or if you wish to arrange a charter faster, call me at 727-546-7257. Be sure and visit my web site for lots more Tampa Bay Area fishing info at: http://www.floridasaltwater.com .
Good fishing and tight lines,
Capt. Charlie
http://www.flfish.com/fl
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Capt. John Sackett
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, March 05, 2001 - 11:32 pm: | |
Subject: The latest from www.AnglingAdventure.com
WOW!!!
I’m really sorry for the brief nature of this report, but it’s been a long week already and if I gave reporting all the action we have right now it’s proper effort, this report would be about 12 pages long! Instead, I’m literally going to break down and just give you the bullet points about the action that some of my partners have going on. It’s hard to believe what a difference a week can make!
Action from the flats to offshore guide by guide…
Capt. Sam Kimball out of Annie’s Bait and Tackle in Cortez has set aside his usual focus on grouper for a little while, and who could blame him. In the last week or so, Sam has had his anglers on some incredibly action from 40 pound amberjack in a hundred feet or more of water, to cobia all the way up to 37 pounds right in near shore! Oh yeah, when he wasn’t out trying to get clients arms pulled out of there sockets, he was out fishing anyway. In this case, it was in his role as teammate aboard the Perico Harbor Marina/Buggin’ Out Team entry in the Southern Kingfish Association event that was held down toward Fort Myers. Now if the 34.6 pound kingfish they caught wasn’t enough to keep their attention away from grouper, hopefully the payday that came with that big fish, and their 3rd place finish was! I can’t wait to see how these guys do in their home waters later this spring. Congratulations to the Perico Harbor/Buggin’ Out Team!
Capt. Mike Wise down in the Boca Grande area was doing things just like he has been for a couple of weeks now. The biggest difference is that this week the BIG snook really woke up! Now I can’t tell you how many of these monster size linesiders he actually caught, but I can tell you that he was reporting some epic battles with fish that couldn’t be stopped. He went from 10 pound tackle all the way up to heavy stuff with 20 pound braided line and it still didn’t matter. If you are looking for an incredible battle with a bug snook right now give Mike a call. Then again, if you wait just a few more weeks, the tarpon down his way will make even the biggest of snook look like wimps!
Capt. Billy Nobles has had some incredible action right in Tampa Bay over the last week that I’ve just got to tell you about. In Billy’s case, he’s been focused on the fish that normally provides us our steadiest flats action in February, the redfish. The action Billy’s clients have had though, is far from normal. You see normal for this week is awefully darned exceptional! These guys are doing reds and trout from 27-37 inches by the dozens right up on some pristine flats. Did I mention trout in that last sentence? Oh yeah, I did. But, that can’t be right can it? In Billy’s case it sure can. You see the same flats that are holding all these monster sized reds are also holding honest 10 plus pound, 30 inch plus seatrout! If you want redfish fun, and true gator size trout, call Billy real soon!
Speaking of the upcoming tarpon action, believe it or not, it’s already tarpon time in a big way for Capt. Jason Ramsey in the Bradenton area. How good is the bite? How about 6 fish hooked, and 3 boated in just the first two mornings that he’s targeted them?! In fact the bite was so strong yesterday that he called Capt. Brian Kisluk out at Perico Harbor Marina, and within an hour Capt. Brian had joined Jason and hooked 2 of the extra large fish aboard his 23 foot C-Hawk too. Yeah, we normally don’t start targeting the “silver kings” this early, but guess who’ll be out there getting them on videotape tomorrow morning? I’ll let you know how it goes. Sure it’ll be really tough to enjoy some of the best snook fishing of the year right here in the backcountry around Tampa Bay with all those tarpon type distractions, but I guess we can suffer through it! Just today in fact, Capt. Jason had the greatest honor of getting his client’s teenage daughter on her first truly big fish. 45 minutes worth of battle, followed by the photos of a lifetime. It doesn’t get much better than that!
Capt. Billy Nobles will probably have his webpage added to our site in the next week or so, but in the meantime if you’d like to arrange a trip with him you can give him a call at (877) FLA-FISH, or just drop me an e-mail at Captsackett@anglingAdventure.com and I’ll get you hooked-up.
Well with any luck at all, this has given you some idea what kind of action we have going on now, and coming up, across the Tampa Bay area. Anyway you look at it, there’s really never a bad time to plan a trip down our way. If you are looking for more information on all the opportunities we’ve got going on, or are interested in booking a trip with one of the finest guides in the area, be sure and visit each of our webpages within our new website http://www.AnglingAdventure.com . Either way, we’ll be out there to let you now what’s going on.
Like our friend Capt. Mark Rankin always said,
Catch ‘em up!
Capt. John Sackett
(941) 920-4891
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