Hot Snapper Bite in Tampa Bay
Capt. Fred Everson
July 22, 2009
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
Wet summer weather continues to hamper local anglers. The fish are there, and they have been willing, but getting at them has been the problem. Virtually every time I've been on the water in the past few weeks, I've been chased off by thunderstorms. Not since 1997 can I remember such a rainy season.
Water clarity is worse than poor, but I saw an unusual sight in the Little Manatee River one morning last week. A small pod of fairly big sharks cruised past my dock early in the morning. All I could see were dorsal and tail fins, but they were certainly sharks, though I couldn't say what kind. My guess would be blacktips, as bull sharks seem to be more solitary. Whatever, by the time I got a plug rigged on a heavy spinning rod with a wire leader they were gone.
Capt. Chet Jennings told me he was tarpon fishing around Port Manatee when one of his clients hooked a big fish. The tarpon jumped into a nearby kayak, spilling its occupant into the bay. Jennings said the lady in the kayak was okay, and that his client landed the tarpon.
Trout fishing has been as good this year as I have seen it in 15 years of guiding. Used to be I would go all the way to Pinellas Point to catch a limit of trout. This year I've traveled no farther than Big Pass to catch trout. The nice thing about trout fishing is that bait is strictly optional. Big trout especially will hit a plug as readily as a live shrimp or sardine. I like Mirrolure's 7MR in chartreuse and the 52 MS in silver. The first plug is a floater that's best suited to shallow water, while the 52MS is a slow sinker. I fish it in water deeper than three feet. Both lures are trout killers. Trout are soft mouthed, so this is one of the few cases where ganged treble hooks make more sense than single hooks. I also keep my drag set much lighter when fishing for trout so the hooks don't pull when I set.
Weather finally permitted a trip to the middle of the bay one day last week. It was dead flat calm and sunny, so Mike Strickland, Bird Glass and I went to the flats off Piney Point to net some sardines. Water clarity was better on this end of the bay and we had little trouble catching bait.
We headed west to the shipping channel and started looking for mangrove snapper under the cans. Practically every buoy had fish under it, and besides the snapper there were also small jack crevalles, and Spanish mackerel. The technique is to rig a small hook on a light leader with a single split shot placed above the hook eye and pitch it next to the buoy. Cut bait on a quarter ounce jig head will also work.
Current limit for mangrove snapper is five fish, with a 10-inch minimum. The fish I like to keep are those over 12 inches. If they are smaller than that, they are hardly worth the effort of cleaning. Mangrove snapper filets are exceptional table fare – certainly among the tastiest of fish in Tampa Bay.
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