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End of Summer Fishing
Capt. Matt Ercoli
September 9, 2008
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
Hey what's up fellow fisherman, how has everyone been late this summer? I hope well. Some of the last few days on the water have been great because of a few low humidity days we have been having. It's really been nice lately and feels like fall is in the air already, my favorite time of year for lots of action with quality fish, low boat traffic and beautiful weather. I like to think of them as dream days, you know the kind of fishing days you dream about, it just seems like everything is perfect. I'm not saying everyday this time of year is like that but it does seem like late September going into October and November we have a lot of them. No matter how good the fishing is it just seems that when the weather is perfect and you look out across the flats and get the feeling that you're one of the only boats out there enjoying the day it just seems all that more special.
Now as for what we're catching. Every fall the reds are in full force. Lots of large fish in the 28 to 34 inch class are typical of roaming fall schools. As the water cools we will start to see more slot size reds move into the shallow pot-holes on the flats. More of these fish will be in the 22 to 26 inch class. The nice thing about schools in the pot holes is they are usually mixed in with an equal number of snook. Sometimes the action is so fast its almost every cast and you're not sure if the next fish will be a snook or a redfish. Of course we are catching lots of snook now as we always do this time of year. We have had lots of smaller fish, but I have had a few nice fish to keep as well since the season opened on the 1st of Sept. We had a couple last week too big to keep, over the 33in. max and one fat fish around 36 inches, a great battle on 10 pound test line in 3ft of water.
Trout fishing is also very solid right now as it's been most of the summer, its really great to see so many trout again with such a nice size to them, lots of nice 17 and 18 inch fish. As the water cools we should see more 20 plus inch trout mixed in with the snook and reds, which always makes great bonuses.
As for the offshore action, I haven't been doing too much offshore lately. The last time I went offshore it was not all that productive but one day a few weeks ago we almost caught a sailfish on the fly rod. I've never heard of anyone pulling that one off in these parts. Snapper fishing is still good close inshore. The exciting thing with those hurricanes way out there in the gulf is they always seem to blow in lots of kingfish, mackerel, mahia, permit and a few sails. I am expecting some great offshore fishing early this season even before the water cools very much. The commercial fisherman let me in on some nice schools of permit a few days ago, and in pretty close too. So maybe we will be taking a crack at them this week. Anyhow, you can bet with those hurricanes brewing out there in the middle of the gulf the offshore fishing is going to be incredible by the first of October. The biggest problem is we will be deciding every morning what will be more exciting, the inshore fishing or the offshore. Either way it should be a good problem to have.
Well I hope you enjoyed this report, if you're not heading out fishing in the next few days you should at least be pulling out the surf-board, the last hurricane brought us some beautiful waves with perfect windless glassy conditions. We are looking forward too much of the same over the next few days.
Keep those fishing lines tight.
Target Species:
Redfish, Snook & Trout
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