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Saltwater Fishing Report for Sarasota, Florida.
Capt. Bob Smith
November 24, 2002
Sarasota - Saltwater Fishing Report
Spanish Mackerel Return
November 24, 2002
Sarasota Fla. Fishing Report
As soon as the water began to clear last week, the Spanish Mackerel were back on the bite. Thursday morning we found the water flat as we came out of New Pass and into the Gulf. The birds were sitting on the water and waiting for the action to start. We sat with them for while and drifted some live shrimp but nothing broke the surface. I decided to move over to one of the (I) reefs in 24' of water in hopes of finding a cobia or mackerel and immediately found a small school of mackerel. We brought a couple to the boat but it was slow. More boats started to move in around us and they also started to hookup but it was still slow. Still hoping for some cobia action, I decided to move up the beach to a pile of rocks in 18' of water. The action was about the same for mackerel. One boat was anchored and was pulling in some sheepshead off the bottom. A report came in via the VHF that the Spanish mackerel were stacked up on the artificial reef M-3. It was a good day to run offshore so we decided to go for it.
The artificial reef M-1 was a little closer and is about the same depth as M-3, so I decided to stop at M-1 first. My motto is "Never run over fish to find fish". I put the boat directly over the structure and turned the engine off. It was non-stop action with Spanish up to about 5lbs. After about an hour of fast action, I felt I should move the boat back over the structure to enhance some barracuda action but when looking at my GPS I found that the boat had not moved. We did not have the first cuda follow or take a mackerel that day. The action continued until about 12:00 noon. By then my two anglers had used up the ten to twelve dozen live shrimp we had and the action was slowing.
Further offshore we heard that the gray snapper action was good around M-7 in 60' of water, but also the jewfish. It was hard to get the snapper up with them around. We decided to head back and do a little trout fishing on the grass flats. We picked up some more live shrimp and had some fun with the trout just above Country Club Shores along the sand bar.
Enjoy and Protect
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