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Tampa Bay - South Shore
Capt. Fred Everson
May 6, 2005
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
Southshore Tampa Bay Fishing Report for May 6, 2005
Water temperature finally shot up to 78 degrees and that’s turned the fishing up a notch. We are getting reports of large schools of redfish on the Southshore flats, and they have been feeding. Capt. Nick Winger reported a hot redfish bite in shallow water on the Southshore flats south of Cockroach Bay. He said he chummed the fish up with scaled sardines, which have finally arrived on the flats in big schools.
My own fishing has proven to be wildly inconsistent, and much of that has to do with wind and weather. Every day the wind blew it was hard to get bait, hard to cast the floats where they needed to be and hard to catch fish. One day last week the fishing was dismal. Two days later I fished the same holes and caught and released slot sized snook, a bunch of shorts, and some jacks. I found bait in several locations after striking out on the flats early in the morning. The 10 foot half inch net finally caught some nice baits on one of the range markers in the middle of the bay. Then later in the morning I found another big pod of bait on the flats and reloaded the well again.
I didn’t have much luck finding redfish, but we saw pods of snook all over the flats. These are fish beginning the trek to the Port Manatee Spoil Island for the annual spawning ritual. I saw many oversized snook, but we did not hook any of those.
The two keepers we caught on Tuesday came on RipTide’s nightglow chubs on weighted worm hooks. The rest of the fish all came on live sardines fished under long cast floats.
Capt. Mel Berman and I got out on Monday to do his TV show. We were shooting for a slam with artificials, but managed only two thirds of it. A couple of nice trout came early on Bayside soft plastics for Capt. Mel, and then a redfish that was just short. We saw quite a few snook and some reds later in the day, but couldn’t get anything to hit. Later at the dock, even the live bait captains said the bite was off.
Quite predictably, the snook bite turned up several clicks soon as the season closed. Action at the Port Manatee Spoil Island should go off with the next full moon. This is hot catch and release fishing, but care should be taken in handling these fish. Use circle hooks when fishing with live bait, and if you would take picture of big snook, hold them horizontally, supporting them with one hand under the belly. This makes the fish docile, and maintains its internal organs in a natural position. Lifting a big snook by the lower jaw could hurt the fish and make it rambunctious.
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