Spring Run!
Capt. Bob Smith
April 14, 2009
Sarasota - Saltwater Fishing Report
The spring run is on and it doesn't get much better than this! Yesterday with the wind gusting over twenty it was necessary to anchor the boat so that we could fish the middle ground grass flats. We caught a mixed bag with plenty of nice fish coming in the boat all day long. With Spanish mackerel up to 5 pounds, spotted sea trout to 4 pounds, pompano to almost 4 pounds, most of the fish we caught were keeper size. As far as I could see, the other boats anchored on the flats were also catching fish. It is not often that I anchor on the grass flats, but if the wind is howling and the fish are there, you need to. Look for a dark patch of grass and anchor so that you can cast to it. We found that a free-line with a large live shrimp worked best for us.
We were fishing the flats close to the south end of Zwicks channel, so when the SW wind started to really hammer us in the afternoon, we moved to the channel to get a break from the wind. I anchored in the choke of the channel close to the south end. I added a small split shot to the free-line so that the shrimp would sink to the bottom. We soon hooked up to a couple of nice redfish, a little over slot size but a lot of fun on light tackle. We took pictures of the first one but the second one broke the leader. We also found some trout in Zwicks.
In all, we caught a large variety of fish, just too numerous to mention all of them but they all added to our fun.
Enjoy & Protect
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