Red-iculous
Capt. Clay Eavenson
May 25, 2008
St. Petersburg - Saltwater Fishing Report
B.J. and his two sons scheduled a charter with me early in the week and they really wanted to do some tarpon fishing in St. Petersburg. We met at the dock at 7am and headed out to pick up some bait and then swing by the Skyway Bridge for some tarpon fishing. Things didn't turn out as we planned but the result of our changed plans was what I have decided to call, "red-iculous".
The original plan, as mentioned earlier, was for tarpon. The torrential down pours, high winds and threat of lightning shut us down on our first attempt of the week. We tried, through one quagmire, to fish for the "poons" by the bridge on the first day but the threat of a much larger storm forced us off of the water by 10am. Not wanting to give up, B.J. said they could come back later in the week, and I did have one other day open, so we reconvened two days later for another shot.
On the second go around I asked if they would be game for going after redfish for the first part of the day and tarpon the second. The redfish bite the day before had been awesome and I figured we could get some catching in before we tried for a silver king. They said , "let's do it".
So after catching bait, we headed for a spot where the bronze bombers had cooperated all week. When we first got there I told them they we may not hit real pay dirt for a couple of hours because the tide wouldn't really be right until about 11am. The bite did turn out to be slow for the first part of the morning but we did manage about 6 redfish before all heck broke loose. Just when I was about to give up I made one more toss of chum into the water and that's when the water erupted with all two familiar sounds of redfish crushing wounded sardines on the surface of the still water.
The frenzy was so intense that the natural bottom feeders were actually coming completely out of the water to annihilate the intentionally wounded baitfish that I had thrown out in large quantities. Once we sent out the same baitfish armed with hooks the bite was on; and oh was it on. We had at least one fish on for every minute of almost an hour and a half and we had more double hook ups than I could count and several triple hookups to boot.
The bite finally slowed to slightly under a break neck pace and we decided to try for tarpon. The boys had their fill of bronze and wanted to upgrade to silver. We headed over to the bridge to get some threadfins for bait and while catching them we saw a few tarpon crushing baits so we stayed right there and tried for an hour. Unfortunately, even though we saw several more tarpon, we just couldn't get a bite. Then we headed out to Egmont and once again the tarpon showed themselves to us but they just wouldn't take a bait with a hook in it.
The full moon may have had something to do with out lack of silver but thankfully we locked up a solid bronze finish for a charter that looked to be doomed by weather. It turned out that their perseverance and patience was what it took to have a "red-iculous" day.
Target Species:
Redfish
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