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Tampa Bay - South Shore
Capt. Fred Everson
March 19, 2007
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
Light winds, warm temperatures and sunny skies made for good fishing early in the week. The inshore bite was fairly slow on the best days – short and sweet – but some good fish were caught. Capt. Danny Guarino reported catching 5 keeper snook in five trips, but said the bite was slow. He found some bait on the flats south of the Little Manatee River, but netting enough to fish with was a bear.
Capt. Chet Jennings said he found some bait on the flats, and that the snook bite was still hot in the Cockroach Bay backcountry.
I waded the flats south of Apollo Beach at the beginning of last week and caught one redfish and a couple of very big jacks. I caught the redfish at the change of the turn of a weak low tide using a pompano jig. I had seen a few pompano, and I have caught redfish and snook on the same short skirted jig, so I figured why not cover all the bases.
A school of redfish was pushing some water across a sandbar and I put the jig 10 feet in front of them and gave it a hop as soon as the fish converged on it. A big redfish pounced immediately, and 10 minutes later I landed the obviously oversized fish and released it.
That was the only shot we had at reds, but we hooked into three big jacks, but landed only one of them. We saw three or four big schools of jack crevalles between the Simmons Park boat ramp and Apollo Beach, but several schools refused everything we threw at them.
I am also seeing schools of jacks around the mouth of the Little Manatee River between Shell Point and sand key. Gabe hooked one off my dock and we had to run it down in the boat – it took the better part of half an hour to get it in the net. I would guess that fish weighed 15 pounds.
High winds and cold temperatures returned with another cold front passing through West Central Florida on Friday and that should keep things quiet for a few days.
For more information, call Capt. Fred Everson at 813 830 8890, or visit his website at tampabayfishingguide.com.
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