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Tampa Bay Fishing Report
Capt. TJ Stewart
March 22, 2005
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
Trophy Fish!
Where oh where do I start, it was a great week! We had a lot of really nice fish this week. Just about every trip that I fished this week, we managed to catch a grand slam, which is a Snook, Red fish, Trout, and Flounder! Most of these trips we had keepers in each species.
The weather has been great except we did have one day that it rained all day, but we fished anyway, and caught some great fish.
I will start with the Snook. We caught lots this past week. Sometimes we had to work for the Snook, but that was just moving the boat around a little. This was because the tide was not moving. The fish would move around, and we had to pole around a little. The Snook of the week was a 30 inch fish.
Then we have the Flounder. This time of year we have a lot of luck with them, particularly on the cold mornings when the water is a little cold for the Snook, or Red fish to bite. A lot of these fish have been in the size limit. The colder the day the more Flounder we would bring home. The Flounder of the week was a 23 inch fish, this is a good size Flounder for the bay.
Lets go to the Red fish. We did manage to get these fish into a frenzy more than once. As you can see in the picture we had 3 fish on at one time, or sometimes 4, if there were 4 people fishing. This is a lot of fun, but it can get crazy at times, because one fish from the front of the boat runs to the back and everybody has to jump over one another like the game Twister. We had a lot of great Red fish this week. The Red fish of the week was 32 ˝ inches, and it put up a great fight. The key with the Red fish, lately, has been the bait. You need a lot so that you can chum these fish into a frenzy.
Last but certainly not least, we have the Trout, and let me tell you there has been some big Trout around. We have not been doing a whole lot of Trout fishing, but while fishing for the others we have managed to catch some good ones. Well it starts with the Trout of the week being a 25 inch fish, which is a very nice Trout. I think I might have told the gentlemen that this would be the big Trout of the week, but I spoke to soon. We managed to catch a fish that was 29 inches, and about 8 lbs. In all my years of fishing I have only caught one bigger and it was 30 inches. It was a great fish.
All of the fishing that we have been doing has been on live bait. I will give you a tip, watch where you are going in the bay because the Red tide has been bad. All you have to do is run through a little bit and your bait won’t live for very long. I was out around the Skyway bridge and ran through a little bit, and by the time I reached the spot that I was going to fish, all the bait was dead.
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