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Tampa Bay - South Shore
Capt. Fred Everson
December 18, 2002
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
Southshore Tampa Bay Fishing Report For December 18
December fishing on the Southshore of Tampa Bay was predictably slow last week. Snook season ended on December 15 with a whimper, and I didn’t a keeper snook on the cleaning table at the bait shop for weeks. The redfish bite was also sparse.
I had a couple of trips with one of my regulars, Mike Podowski of Apollo Beach and we caught a couple of short snook in the Little Manatee River late one afternoon, before the season ended but there wasn’t much of a bite. Yesterday I had him and his daughter Karen aboard, and we took it to Apollo Beach to look for cobia and shark.
Mike landed a big jack crevalle, and got broke off by blacktips twice, but other than that there wasn’t much going on. I saw Capt. Chet Jennings out there with clients, and he got into the jacks a little bit, but he too reported typical December fishing, and no cobia.
As the sun came up and the wind died down I headed south to the flats north of the mouth of the Little Manatee River to look for redfish. After seeing a few fish, I put the Power Pole down and we put out some big shrimp. We didn’t catch any reds, but did hook a few bonnethead sharks. Food quality of this species is said to be quite good, but I can’t personally vouch for that. I have eaten blacktip, and liked it. Bonnetheads are bottom feeders and that usually makes for a good fish on the table. In any event, the sharks are fun to catch.
The last shrimp delivery was full of jumbos and selects. That’s the bright spot of this end of the year fishing just now. I went to Pinellas Point looking for pinfish on the flats last weekend, and didn’t find any. Then I went to the South Skyway Fishing Pier and found some greenbacks, but the sizes were mixed – some nice baits, but lots were too small to fish with.
Best bet for the next couple of weeks should be tailing redfish on the extreme low tides, then trout season will reopen January 01. Sheepshead are another winter staple that few anglers take advantage of. They are great eating, but tough to clean.
Hope the weather heats up a bit before the water temperature drops any more. Another cold front could start putting some fish at risk. Water temperature at Egmont Key this morning was 61 degrees.
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