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Tampa Bay - South Shore
Capt. Fred Everson
June 26, 2004
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
Fishing on the Southshore of Tampa Bay has cooled off during the recent heat wave. The prime summer targets continue to be mackerel, sharks, cobia and tarpon. I ran the marks looking for cobia on Thursday and saw not a one. Ed Childers hooked a big shark while blind casting to a channel marker, but it cut him off after a one good pull. We covered a lot of water and fished a lot of marks, but besides the shark, we caught only one small jack.
Last Sunday I had Dr. Ben Keyes of Largo, and his son Shawn out looking for tarpon and sharks. We had a two hour rain delay early in the morning, and then didn’t do much for the rest of the morning. Then a pod of ladyfish found our live shrimp, and we put three in the well that were about 8 inches long. I decided to return to the tarpon hole with the fresh baits and give it another try.
I had two rods rigged with 7/0 circle hooks on hundred pound monofilament leaders tied to 50 microfilament for tarpon, and one rod rigged with wire for sharks. Predictably a shark hit one of the tarpon rods, but surprisingly didn’t bite through the leader until I gaffed it. Shawn Keyes battled the 30 pound blacktip for about 30 minutes, which is a long time for any shark on a monofilament leader. It was the circle hook that saved the day, as it lodged exactly in the corner of the big fish’s mouth where it couldn’t get its teeth on the leader. That’s great testimony to the effectiveness of super sharp circle hooks.
Best bet for the coming week should be on the flats on the low tides of late afternoon and early evening. There are lots of redfish and snook on the flats in the summer months, but they are less active during the heat of midday than they are around sunrise and sunset. The minus tides around 8:30 pm on Tuesday and Wednesday will be prime for wade-fishing.
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