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Tampa Bay - Saltwater
Capt. Matt Ercoli
November 10, 2003
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
How’s everyone doing? Fishing couldn’t be any better! On nearly every fishing trip I run someone asks what is my favorite time of year to fish. I always seem to lean toward Oct. and Nov. The fishing is just so good, and even better, so peaceful. There is just so little boat traffic this time of year and the weather is always so nice and dry with lower humidity. The past month has been nothing short of spectacular. It seems as though you can’t help but catch fish. The snook fishing right now is definitely the most consistent and most of the fish are in the 22 to 27 inch range with a few exceeding the 30-inch class. The most incredible thing though is the shear numbers that we are catching. Average days are 25 to 35 snook with some of the best breaking 60 and 70 snook per day, and that doesn’t include all the other fish that we are catching while fishing my favorite snook holes.
The redfish are also mixed in with snook, we are probably averaging between 6 and 15 a day while fishing for snook. About half of them are keeper size. It seems that most of the reds are either short or just under the max keeper size, which makes for some great eaters. It’s nice to see all the little reds around now, I think our stocking program maybe starting to kick in. Tampa bay starts a stocking program where they are putting a million redfish per year in the bay, and now I am hearing rumors of 4 million per year may be in the plan. How lucky we fisherman around here are, we probably already have the best public fishing in the US, and it is only getting better for the most part.
As for other fish on the flats, we are catching lots of trout, big jacks over 15 pounds, (hang on) and some nice eating size cobia, no monsters, but some good eating size 20 pounders.
If the fabulous flats-fishing isn’t enough, hang on to you fishing pole because the offshore fishing is equally as good. A little less consistent but the good days are unbelievable. One of the nice things, it’s all happening so close, within 3 miles. That leaves us plenty of time to fish offshore and on the flats in the same day to mix it up. It leaves me with almost too many back-up plans as well. So what are we catching out there right now? Try this on for size, imagine sitting on a huge pod of bait watching 30 and 40 pound kingfish free jump behind the boat while doing battle with a 100 plus pound tarpon or a 75 pound spinning back tip shark. Better yet, a giant and my favorite, smoker kingfish. There are also loads of Spanish mackerel mixed in which almost become a problem when schools of 10 to 40 pound kingfish are crashing up our cum line. We are catching all these speices in the same place and sometimes at the same exact moment. It’s times like these that make even the most time tested fishing guide excited. I love it this time of year, why can’t it always be this good? I said to one of my associates the other day.
Well if you would like to get out there and do some fishing, November should be awesome and I do still have some availability. If you are heading out on your own have fun and keep those lines tight. Oh yes, remember that Christmas is coming, so if you are thinking about a gift certificate for someone let me know soon. Have a good one!
Capt. Matt
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