Summertime is Snapper time
Capt. Fred Everson
July 21, 2008
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
Fishing around the full moon this week had it's ups and downs. The best tides were in the afternoon early in the week, but thunderstorms made them unavailable until Thursday. I went across the bay with Roger Mills and his son Chris to look for some pompano on the west side of the bay, but we found only a single fish.
Late in the afternoon we tried throwing Mirrolures at trout off Pinellas Point and hooked only one fish there, and Chris lost it in the grass on the bottom. We had better luck fishing cut bait for mangrove snapper on the cans in the middle of the bay. We put three fish on ice before the wind picked up and finally blew us back to the dock.
Early next morning I went after pompano again on the flats north of the Sunshine Skyway. We saw one boat catch four fish, but we never got a hit. We tried the trout again off south Pinellas Point, and that was almost the same story, but we did catch one 20 inch fish on a 57 MS Mirrolure, and two shorts. We tried the same buoys on the ship channel, and scored three more snapper on chunks of threadfin herring, all between 13 and 15 inches.
I spoke with Capt. Nick Winger of Apollo Beach and he said he did lots of fishing this week and little catching. The usually reliable backcountry of Joe's Island was unproductive, and Winger blamed it on the full moon. He said he had a little bit better luck in Little Cockroach Bay and caught a few redfish.
Capt. Chet Jennings reported some action on tarpon around the Skyway on the outgoing tide early this week. The tarpon thing may be over at Boca Grande, but the local action will continue through August at the mouth of the bay.
Join the captain for a 3 hour Inshore Fishing Class at Skipper's Smokehouse on August 12 at 7:00 PM. Cost is only $25 and inclueds a copy of the captain's latest book -- Fish the Flats -- an $18 value.
Target Species:
Redfish, trout, cobia, Spanish mackerel, snapper
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