Tampa Bay Fishing Report

Capt. TJ Stewart
April 15, 2004
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report

Fishing in Tampa bay.

Well here we are with another great week of fishing to tell you about. The Snook fishing has been great. We caught some really nice fish this week including a 31-inch Snook, which would have to be the Snook catch of the week. We won’t tell you about the big one that got away, but if you didn’t have that story it wasn’t a true day of fishing.

We had some days that we caught at least 30 Snook or better. Toward the end of the week we had some higher tides bringing more Redfish further up on the flats. We had a couple of days with at least15 Redfish or better with Snook and Trout mixed in with the Redfish.

The bait is starting to move into the flats, and as the bait moves in the Trout follow. We have had some really good Trout fishing. One day in particular we were Trout fishing we had caught about 20 Trout with a couple of mackerel mixed in. One of the guys was reeling in a Trout when a 30lb Cobia came up and tried to take the Trout. He tried to take the Trout two different times but the Trout was hooked too deep in the Trout’s mouth so we brought the Trout back in and re-hooked it, and threw it back out. It took a few minutes but the Cobia came back. We had the fish on for a couple minutes before he broke the leader.

The Tarpon are back. They have been back for a while but the bite has been really good lately. We had a great last day to wrap up the week. We had a 10-year-old birthday boy boat a 90lb Tarpon with just a little help holding the rod, he reeled it in the whole way. This is just after one of the other gentlemen on the boat boated a 150lb Tarpon which was awesome in itself. We jumped another 5 fish before calling it a day. Just look at the photos above. Man what a week! Looking forward to the next.

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